Eyes

      Eyes tell lies to the beholder. Eyes are lenses that take in everything. What the brain screens the owner then rationalizes as the view. When we are slaves to our desires our eyes can only perceive what is missing. When we are captive to our fears our eyes can only find problems. To own and master your own vision means being fully aware of what the eyes take in. When our eyes examine our own faces, bodies and lives we are at once very alone and quite rich with comapny. Blemishes, failures, hopes to succeed, marks of previous adventures and changes fire back from self-examination. But what do the eyes truly see? In introspection is too much story re-telling. Eyes begin objectively, engineered for survival. As a creature grows, eyes ultimately become conditioned to serve higher agendas. Something is lost in the trade of autonomy for task advancement. Even fused in our own heads eyes serve themselves first.
 
      Outside. Night. Twin glowing red orbs in the woods, grab my attention, focusing my senses. No scent of smoke. Just musty, damp cloth and steam. Not embers. Eyes. Analysis is innate. Threat assessment has spurred fancy footwork and a drive to leap forward, grasp and pop those glowing red eyes before the olfactory glands have even registered it as a creature, not fire. Even earlier than such split-second boost, my eyes have already taken over. Don't. Slow your heartrate. Red eyes is a creature with night vision. Predator, but not like me. Not for a purpose. For survival. Food. Let it go. My head bows. Peace to you, hunter. We're both lucky to not run into each other.
 
      Outside. Daytime. Poolside the blue ripples flash of white where sunlight plays off of lapping eddies in the water. Too bright. Apertures contract and I feel my focus changing. Less light allowed in, but greater detail recognition. Naturally. Humans are prey at dusk. Use the biological reflex. If details are what my eyes are set to scope I'll scan the terra cotta walls of the cabana. Apophenia: beware. Stucco paint yields faces everywhere. My eyes aren't playing tricks. That statement is wrong. Apophenia is a mental expectation elevated to the point of aesthetic development. Aesthetics are subjective and declarations of development are arbitrary. The eyes are on their own. Bad drivers shouldn't blame cars for their inability to merge, tactically negotiate or maintain the speed limit. Come to Los Angeles, short-sighted shook ones. Mind finds faces. Eyes find the hroizon, scan movements, palm tree leaves in the wind, feeling stasis, relaxing the body. The most perfect heart-shaped ass and finely sculpted back on a sunbathing reader, prostrate upon a deck chair, locks my eyes in, re-exciting my animal. Eyes still watch for changes in palm fronds, water ripples, light saturation. Eyes still do their job. Feet remember their role as well and I roll on, casual as always.
 
      Desires, fears and agendas scroll across my mental screen, adjusting the template of my scope, all day. But my eyes aren't made of thoughts and wants. Just made to serve those thoughts and wants in moments of compromise. Soon as my eyes lock on with another's those screens scream at one another, leaping out to meet. Paper Dance. Where do our rubrics fit? Are we into each other's whole? Eyes as windows to the soul communicate so much. Eyes have their own roll/role. What isn't held back in the mind finds a place to inscribe. Watching a well-bonded couple engage in discourse of magnitude in just a look brings me instantly to the hidden world. Eyes function on their own realm, with their own adventures and private lives. In a world full of eyes is a dynamic, unspoken sphere of vision and exploration, light and life dancing that is perpetual, yet rarely acknowledged. Eyes aren't just windows. They're doorways to other dimensions.
 
"I know a poor man, a rich man, I know how to talk to a King. But nobody here is gonna tell me, I can't find out one thing.
I see a glow around you. Open your arms, 'cause I'm coming right on through.
Maybe I'm wrong, but it won't take long to see....
 
Do you close your eyes? Do you close your eyes? Do you close your eeeeeeeeeeeeyes? When you making love?"
 
Ronnie James Dio