“How did you feel when the lights went out?”
Silence.
“Were you afraid?”
No.
“Tell me, how did you feel?”
I felt- gray.
“Give me an answer other than gray. You always say gray.”
I’m always gray.
“She’s not made any progress. Answers all my questions with the word gray”
That terrible look of disappointment. Like they used to be proud.
During the blackout, the world died.
I killed them.
With one steely knife clenched in the grip of my hand,
Embedded in a bouquet of crimson roses,
Next to Eleanor Rigby’s jar.
And I trudge along the snow,
Admiring the monsters that take the shape of bushes, shadowed against silver moonlight.
They look at me with gray eyes and growl softly to themselves.
And I jump, because with a growl comes an attack.
But there is no attack, just the plastic mouths chewing, mocking.
They toss me around, glowing blurs like lights grabbing my legs, my hands.
The world stops spinning and for once- there is peace.
And then the lights come back on and disappointment floods through my veins.
No! I cry aloud, desperation taking refuge in the tears welling up in my frozen eye lids.
They run in. “What’s wrong,” they ask, afraid, naïve.
I never got to see the stars.
I crawl along the carpet, hugging the rugs.
Because they’re all I can hold on to, to keep from flying up to see the stars in the dark.
Gray! I cry. It’s all gray!