The Quiet Room

It isn't dissent to long for our quiet rooms;
It shows the skin how warm skin can be.
It lays a blackened wall
for the seam of light from dreams.
It mutes the world for insights
that seeps through from within the skin.
It rewinds the day in cartoon to numb
the harsh blades that drains the heart.
(All that she'll do, when she's with you).

But eventually,
the room becomes too small for a soul
and she'll glare at the itchy pillow
and her mind will swell and swell
pressing against the red brick windows,
and her dreams swing and swing their
ambitious fists from wall to wall
and the phone won't stop ringing
won't stop echoing every word ever heard
and sometimes she hears new voices
barely distant, like the clouds
shadowy things that peek and scheme
and they make her notice the dark
that no one is near to blanket her in their arms
no one but this fetal body on wet floor
now she's feeling on knees for the door,
and she's creaking it open,
and she sees their hard smiles above,
and she's swelling up at how wrinkled they are
at how they've changed their faces
and they're asking for directions, for the time

so she slams it shut.

kc