WITNESS
Michigan
1992

I meet my witness
At the age of 18
On the back stairs of my university’s library
On a lonely college night

I am filling time
As it often feels in my life
Until I finally get to start doing
What I’m here to do

I wander the upper decks of
An expansive and silent library
She feels endless
With lanes of books
That stretch up towards the sky

It is Thursday night
Thousands of drunken students
Are playing in the bars
As I walk alone
Reading edges of aged books

I enter the back stairway of the library
With a few books pressed into my chest
My arms wrapped around them
When I freeze

I am on a wide marble stair-case
Surrounded by my reflection on all sides
In the mirror of the windows
And a part of my consciousness leaps out of my body
To witness me standing in the moment

I stand frozen
Seeing myself as a stranger may see me
Seeing myself for the curious and alive being that I am
Confused as to what I’m doing
And at the same time
Beautifully doing what I’m here to do

I think of all the slow foreign films that I love
I think of My Own Private Idaho, that I just watched
I think of films
And I see myself
As a character in my very own
Film

Here I am
A beautiful, determined
Seeker
Certain that there is something
To be found
Beneath it all

I stand on that stairway
Frozen
Seeing myself
Even if I am not seen by others
In that moment
I see myself

I feel the ease that this brings me
This new witness
This ability to look at myself
From outside myself
To see me
When the need arises.

******************************WE ARE ALL STARS***************************

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