Grey

In the chaos in my mind, there are images, fleeting.
A yellow window with shadows flitting.
Footsteps. Leaves. Bad decisions.
Later, sitting on a pile of chairs,
I could be the last one left here.
The crumpled edges of clouds float by.
The leaves forget to flutter. I hold on
to the armrests, grabbing them tight.
I'm in a ship, unsunk, yet
floundering in this maelstrom.

The meowing cats and graying sky,
violently loud to my silent mind.
Momentary madness.
And everything gets rolled up
and punches me in the gut.
It's heavy as iron. Rusted and raw.

Sunday afternoons are the worst.
One doesn't know what one is waiting for.
Everybody is a mystery. Everything obscure.
Freedom was always the colour of the sky -
Until it faded into a pale, washed-out grey.
The clicking keyboard. The bent back.
Unable to really look up, to see. To change.
To run like the wind into faster days,
instead of easing into the future
like pickle leaking out of a labelled glass bottle.
Staining the mantelpiece a shadowed blood red.

What am I doing? I should be doing something.
But I look around, and it hurts even more.
The lives, so many, hollowed out,
like the deep gorges carved on aged faces.
It makes no sense. The ache in my chest,
it deepens. Homo demens.
I drift further. In my mind, even further.

When I'm desperate, though, it's easy to console myself.
You see this mess? It isn't me.
I live far too meaningfully.
My real life isn't here.
It's by the swaying trees
far away. Where the sky is blue,
and the birds sing anew every day.
And I'll watch the clouds from there:
By the fields where the dogs lay.