The choice had been robbed from me
in obscurity of emotional insecurity.
Shades drawn with the chill of the freezer leaking,
the silent film dotted the room in the stains of coping,
not once overheard for voices were kept low,
confined to a grimace come every instance where edges turn vibrant,
playing savior to deprecation,
lining up limbs in row to tally off each show,
ran on the daily for the unavoidable episode,
yet still in the quiet with shades drawn,
a freezer leaking,
a grimace concealing.
In the collision of circumstance when years removed,
the screen possesses a mind of its own,
refusing stray blows to succumb to silence,
bending but unbreakable to an assault from over the counter.
No sleight of hand can transform memory
or the remembrance it offers as written upon my skin,
defying orders to sink below to match a brighter color
even when a call for a future beckons greater than before.
I’m consigned to a willingness to write the conclusion.
Though stood with steadiness in appearance,
the movements I make cause a constant quake as I try to forge away,
the shockwave soldiers crusading to sack the soul.
Peeling back the blinds lets only a sliver in
to melt away the ice age left to flourish in isolated confines.
It’s barely enough to call a progression to uncertainty,
but when rising from the bed and feeling water grace my toes,
I feel a slight assurance
that one day my dreams may beat my fears,
and march a fragment of me across the decade line.
Then one day I may make my dreams
from make believe and into an open door,
roaring through halls on a rushing river,
for the one day I may win against my fears.
And one day the screen will flicker to black,
and in a blank reflection I’ll be caught shouting in color,
wrapped so tightly in the coil of a razor,
damning the urge to a depth below soil
where the buried remains of coping lay.
And in that embrace, I will shrug off the restraints,
And place no hope in a knowing dead end,
for I’ve found courage in uncertainty,
where the day will come where I win against my fears
and never be caught silent again.
( ❤ Mitch)
