Black & Blue

I am awash with black and blue

A sea of something new

To me a foreign territory I will never know

People so sharp and shiny they glow

Clean cut like guillotined heads

Folded and tucked like nursing home beds

I am rolling in the waves of edges

9 to 5 has scrubbed them clean

I wonder what they glean

From subway rides

Or passing brides at chapels they never noticed before

Black and blue as if they're bruised

By the way life worked out

By how early they lost their clout

By how late they always feel

No matter how early they rise to reel at the lack of sunlight

Dripping through their Ikea curtains

I wonder are they certain

Do they know more than I

What it feels like to fly and fall on their own wings

Or have they have started collecting things

Like the feathers they lost to the sunlight

Or names of lovers lost in the twilight

Or the the twilights they lost to the workload

Do they overload and explode on the meaning of life

Or the lack thereof

Do they look above

At the night skies

Marveling how the time flies

Singing songs from old cds

They haven't seen in years

Shriveling up their ears

with music their past had reared

Do they know more than I

Grasping sugar water coffee

Scraping together the couple slices of sunbeams left in their budget

To buy their fares to visit Dante

Knowing what the next 5, 10, 15, 20 years will hold

Planned and packaged in a bow

Here I am guessing what the next 5, 10, 15, 20 seconds hold

And wringing my hands over what I might miss

Or what I might not

Where I should go

Waiting to rot in the same spot

Unable to move my feet, my hands, myself,

Turning to stone in the universe's Medusa stare

Blinded by the glare

Stock still and awash with black and blue