Did You See the Face of God Tonight?

oh yes there’s many a man or woman
that’s been put in the insane asy­lum
when this has hap­pened to them
and they’re sit­ting there today, peo­ple think they’re insane
but they saw some­thing that’s real
and they see it when they’re on drugs
the only thing is they see it
not through the light of god

because when you see the face of god you will die

—Godspeed You! Black Emperor, Hung Over as the Queen In Maida Vale

I saw you through the win­dow, in a cof­fee shop with­out a cof­fee in your hand.

At first I won­dered why you were sit­ting so far away from your bags, as if you had put them down and for­got­ten where you were.

Then I real­ized that those bags were the sum of your pos­ses­sions, along with your pink Dora The Explorer hat, and soiled orange over­coat you wore in the mid­dle of a warm sum­mer night. Everything about you screamed crazy.

You played with your jelly­beans, tilt­ing them back and forth in the clear plas­tic bag, watch­ing them slide back and forth with eyes like stones in their sock­ets. You were lost to the world.

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Then you got up and left. You wan­dered the street, paus­ing to peer in the win­dows of jew­el­ery stores where there was no jew­el­ery, like a child with­out a care in the world.

It made me won­der.

What got you high tonight?

Did you see the face of God tonight?

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