When We Became As Vampires
It came as a fever in the blood, so long ago none remember the origin.
Like chicken pox, a quick virus touch and then over.
Another childhood rite of passage, like baby teeth,
like eyes from blue to brown.
After the fire of the fever they cool,
the skin pales, the eyes grow fierce, rimmed with blood.
Enamel of the fangs erupt from the gum line, the fever breaks
and they emerge…beautiful.
When we became as vampires and our reflections were taken away.
Not vampires like you know it. Not that Bela or Max Schrek nonsense.
We don’t lust for blood. Well, not blood alone. No immortality.
We age and die. We buy houses. We fuck. We go to work.
But now we hunt by the moon.
We eat the meat raw. We are the new carnivores.
And all was changed.
When we became as vampires and our reflections were taken away.
We take photographs of our children to remind us of the before times.
We document all that we can, knowing it will soon be gone.
First haircuts, first smiles, first laughs, first steps.
Film the holy document, film the most important memory.
For soon, the fever will come. It comes for us all.
And after: no reflections, no pictures, no art, no sculpture.
Nothing to allow us to see ourselves as we are;
the beautiful creatures into which we have transformed,
when we became as vampires, and our reflections were taken away.
There are paintings, but no portraits.
We cannot paint ourselves.
The paint touches the canvas and fades.
There is sculpture, but no David.
No lithe Greek heroes. We chip at the marble.
Once a face is chiseled out, the entire structure shakes into ash.
There are photographs, but no people.
There are empty mirrors.
We walk to the lakeside and the images in the water show blue sky alone.
When we became as vampires, and our reflections were taken away.
There were those who sought a cure, those who
thought they could change the nature of the divine, and
promised a return. Yet every vaccine would wither,
like old vitamins on a bodega shelf,
as if the fever itself knew of our plan and evolved
to compensate. There were those who sought
a more spiritual solution, the self-flagellation
of the medieval, convinced that if we could absolve
ourselves of sin we could return to the daylight.
There were those who thought it a curse, incurable.
Vain creatures who never learned the lesson of Narcissus,
now doomed to never see their own beauty.
When we became as vampires, and our reflections were taken away.
And there were others, like I, who count it a blessing.
We were so lonely before.
We were so isolated before.
Delicate, broken creatures, so desirous of connection,
but trapped in our own perception.
Now, in the caress of love between man and wife,
parent and child, friend to friend; in the whispers
of love, beauty, and desire, we must learn to trust.
The only eyes now are those of others, what they
see in us, they must say to us, or else we may never know.
In losing our reflections, we lost our vanity.
We lost our selfishness.
We lost the endless pursuit of youth.
We lost the fear of age and grey.
And we embraced one another with our words.
When we became as vampires.
