Confessional

There is a room in my head

The door is whimsical and moody

The key keeps getting lost

And getting in is usually serendipity

I know it’s a parallel world, like Pullman’s

Things happen there that do not here

Beggars speak to me as do kings

Bored housewives, songwriters past their prime

They tell me their stories, show me their wounds

Laugh with me, tell me preposterous lies

I see through them in that room

I know them, like God knows his creatures

The colours are deeper there, vivid, blown up

The voices are clear, there is no noise to drown them out

I love those stories, love that I can hear them

Love that I can live in hope of one day telling them

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I am suddenly tired of words

Tired of hoping against hope

They will yield some import

Yield resonance with something deep

I scramble around for the right ones

Doubtful of ever finding them

Tired of forever playing games

Hide-and-seek, catch-me-if-you-can

I am slowly growing old playing

Despairing of ever forcing a win

It is a young man’s sport

A lifetime ahead to try, to fail, to try again

Yet they draw me back over and over,

Drug-like, over peaks and valleys

Challenging, deriding, playing coquette

And I start to play again.

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It comes crawling out of the mind’s woodwork

Hurting, stabbing, burrowing deep

Gnawing away at self-esteem, eating away steadily at ego

Burning to a cinder all that’s good in me.

While your coffee talk turns to dinner conversation

My small talk becomes the insignificance it truly is

And I prepare to go quietly into a lonesome night

When jealousy comes crawling.