Gray
Flashes of light spark like electricity Baffle my youthful gaze Those who claim you live on the fringe Barefoot, gypsy, wild, unhinged Chin high, these overlooked wells of wisdom Care not for the things of this world The eyes give them away I noticed but said nothing A keen gaze revealed truth You meant business Every lie sensed through echo location Wielded authority of failures gifts Power untainted by success Starved, I tore at the bars of my worldly prison The place they locked us in to learn Striping us of challenge Creativity siphoned by vacant flesh suits This well-funded ruin of youth Helped me understand The gasp I took upon completion Runaways don’t always resurface Knowledge comes with flamboyant scars Displayed as stripes of honor Worn proud against the norm The inverse of beauty is messy Gnarly fingers cling to shreds of individuality Carried forward with hearts broken but beating Vicious smiles cracking the corners of thinning lips Like sun the glistening on thread of wiry hair I craved the signs these feral creatures bluntly bore A club of dirty fingernails, earthly perfume, and rattling beads Silent signals of allegiance against universal absurdity Asylum escapees cackle loud like jackals I drew rich wafts from their limitless pots Suffering, triumph, wisdom, grit Mixed into a nourishing stew My time has not yet come, I wait Standing in the center of the bridge Beginning and end in sight, I hold my basket full Health, truth, time, and everyone I love still pulsing with breath I have my gray, it peeks out on sunny days like fairy hair My place is marked, burnt from the flames of fallen fantasy Hard realized truths of disappointment Danced in amusement for the divinely removed That beckoned my sorrowful participation A game of wit and endurance for the weak-willed The author of this paradox must be a jester Yearning for stillness, I sneak in moments of disentanglement Where they cannot siphon any more I go to the woods, messy moss cushions my feet Hook digits in an unbroken chain with the fingers of Mother Earth I pause, glance back at pillars of salt Shake my hair loose hair free until it curls over my face I return still, for now But when it comes, it’ll come unannounced I’ll drop my dirty rags and run bare toward the trees That evening stroll, a skip toward eternity Gone. Forever. In my disappearance, I’ll be fully ALIVE Until then, I survive on fallen beads from gypsy dread