(for Mitch, who provided the title.)
hear him.
he is you:
“watch me.”
a human buddha
was a statue
at one time.
the idea
possessed him,
made him strive.
as a picture, framed,
he was weak. as an icon,
he served no one.
yet once he
stepped outside
the rectangles,
outside the windows
of designer shops
and into a series of
concentric circles,
he was freed. once he
lived as a human being,
the concept proved
unnecessary and the real
thing took its place.
“I, as you, had been
in the window this whole
time.” He dressed, then,
and rose to leave,
adorned in the finest
jewels nature had
to offer, naked
but for his sympathy.