The Price

The sky is still grey on this rainy day,
the cracked surface below, still gleaming under salty streams
and that endless slap of blackness
through the window, next to his photograph.
This hopeless overkill…
He turns his back on the fragile chill and sighs.

He noticed how the strained, tired sky still clouds over today.
Even though she has gone there is no more wrong
than there was before,
Yet the reasons remain…
Except now he can’t blame her for the cloud, or the rain,

or for the shadow above his head, that bitter mass of obscurity that hangs
even when she’s gone, and the frost bites at his hands
and even when she’s there no more
the Devil lurks outside his door.
Even though she has gone.

Long gone.

The twisting, turning, willing of knife into back
scratching, scraping, streaming
through his mind,
like the polystyrene scream in her eyes...
The truth drowned her voice.

Eaten alive by his bruised white sheets
Caged in a comfort
created by hand
Controlled
in environments stained by man

But of course that spark that flies
It could never die
Only lose itself
In the passing crowd, just as she had done

He discovered himself smiling
A revelation at last, and the confidence flowed through his pores
and words finally flowed freely in this place, through razor lips
that had rarely spoken
words which she did not provoke.

Save all this excitement for a rainy day
and let me watch it wash away.
I love it when lightning strikes
because it lights up our dreary lives.