There you are
picture yourself
standing in a vacated room
the walls are nondescript
from the window comes a little wan sun
hardly enough for warmth
you pull yourself closer
recalling how as a child
sitting on old iron radiators in winter
they’d say you’d develop hemorrhoids
in those days
the sound of scuffed shoes running for class bell
figuring you had a few moments yet
to stare out at brick and cement
stretch out reverie
a voice inside your head
surely this isn’t all there is?
you made a pact with yourself
to get the hell out
whatever it took
gathering your books
mindful of their ticket
you forgot yourself in dream
walking past the classroom
after all
learning is better in the mind
than grind of chalk on board
some boy kicking you in the back
with sweaty socks
you knew even then
this was but a stepping stone
though if asked you couldn’t say
what of the grim facade urged you most
to escape
and now
all these years later
more alone than that day
when covered by childhoods vigor
and the smell of something better
just around the corner
hope has been sore in her visits
silence too often your friend
as we fall one by one out of the egg carton
we are without wings
without safety harnesses
all the others found places
in busy lives, babies, families, jobs
the weave and knot of life
whilst you stood watching out of the window
glimmering
expecting to fly
now in shallow rooms
artifice has left her scent
they tell you the last one has passed over
you feel it in the curve of your chest
no more hands to scoop you back
from your leaning motion to find
somewhere to breathe
where trees are ever green
sunlight full on face
obscuring all trace of bleak homes
terraced and hollow
where you can hear the flush of
neighbors loud toilet
piercing cry of another
born into fitful times
where you never understood
your own role
just the fallacy of drowning sorrows
sundays in the bar
knocking back glasses of regret
nothing could spur you faster
toward wide open space where
no trace of sorrowful city remained
and wherever you go
there you are
still back against the wall
still with the locked door
school girl tights bunched in your mouth
hearing muffled voices
discussing your inability to speak
how long can you hold your tongue girl?
before the need to scream
unfurled
and in one howl you swallow yourself
all the disappointment
all the lost chances
breaking through cloud
fast diminishing in oboe sky
open the storeroom of your mind
clear out those long stored hurts
preserved in obscura
you may feel you have nothing
but in the sundering fall of flight
we find again our urge
never to quite escape
perhaps more a reinterpretation
carrying on no more alone than before
for we are born crying in singular pitch
in each step grow further to our end
it is in the humility of knowing this
we find our greater
solace
TheFeatheredSleep 