Grey Ghost

You were near gentle when you placed the handcuffs on my wrist,
                      I thought I saw a sad mourning in your eyes.
Did you feel you were caging a creature more beautiful when free?
                      The keepers were not so tender,
They were heart-numbed and glassy eyed as they stripped off everyones color
                      To clothe them in grey jumpsuits.

Now I only see the sun with vertical grey bars shadowing it's face.
                      I only move when you tell me too.
I eat only what dull tasteless food you put on my plate.
                      I stare at grey walls and grey doors.
Even my memories have lost their color to only black and white scenes.
                      Old movies with static lines.

Unlike the pacing tiger with desperate fiery eyes
                  We shuffle our shackled feet.
We move in moments of creaks, moans, and groans.
                  We grow more grey each step.
The oldness saturating and sinking into the bones brittle marrow.
                  We fade to grey ghost of times past.

Youth's freedom is too painful to view now,
                  There is no comfort there.
You lock me out and lock me in and lock me down,
                  Aways in a hurry to get it done and move on.,
You leave without a smile or one word of comfort.
                  My thought of you is too painful.

Grey ghost in a grey world,
        We are prisoners of time
Who will soon fade from your memory.
        Tonight at home in your own bed
The memory of me will be a small splinter removed.
          You  will dream colorful freedom.

I do wonder if you know
        I was once free to come and go,
I once lived in the rainbow of  life,
        Going to the park with the kids and wife.
But now only a grey, tired, imprisoned man,
        Waiting, waiting, waiting, for my release to another land.

The sunsets now,
        And one golden beam puts a point of light on the grey wall,
I wondered there was no one
        To go to her grave where her remains rot
And look up into that vast free sunset sky
        And tell her for me
Tonight I am released and will fly
          Home to her soft and gentle embrace.