Beauty Hurts

Beauty hurts.
Beauty demands too much.
Beauty makes me feel small and skinless.

I like a little buffer of numbness
Between me and the world.
Just a little extra hide.
A carapace.
Is that wrong?
It works for me.
I'm open to experience.
I just don't need it to ravage me all the time.

I get caught out.
I get ambushed.
The beauty lurks in unexpected places,
Like a brigand,
And I am not always on my guard.
It leaps into my eyes. I close them.
It's too late.
It has already leapt in.

It stays with me.
Burned onto the brain.
I get no respite.
I close my eyes.
I get no respite.
The beauty burns and burns.

I am a small person.
All I want is to be small and comfortable.
The beauty mocks me with a glimpse of greatness.
A taste of deep feeling.
A hint of a higher grace.

I don't want that.
I want to wake up slowly from a blank sleep
And eat a little cereal
And read something sad in the newspaper
And shake my head
And have a muffin.
I don't need the sublime ache of awareness.
It doesn't help me.
It doesn't help me get through my day.