Poem Five-Hundred

Opening my eyes,
Taking in the sight
Of my bleeding self being broken and beaten,
Torched down and shredded with a heavy might;

Something was torn,
Another thing was crushed;
I call out into the silence,
But all around me, I am hushed;

They walk on passed,
Sprinkling salt and stone,
And my sight blurs;
As they pass, they begin taking bone;

Closing my eyes,
I crumble into a pool of skin;
And my mind wanders off,
Into the sunset of mines and pins;

Walking unweighted,
I feel the breeze, but not the grey airs;
Seeing the people;
They see my shadow, but not my tears;

My form was a ghost,
As I passed by them;
They handed over a bucket of salt,
And I move to sprinkle it over the condemned;

Because, through my new eyes,
Unfit to truly see,
All I see is another one of us,
That is just like them or me;

But I hear the cries,
Can feel their despair and pained tears,
And I'm not allowed to do anything,
To pretend that we aren't both mirrors;

I'm supposed to throw my salt,
Deep into their flesh
To give them pain
As they lay open and so very fresh;

And I contemplate it,
As anyone has,
To just give in to the cycle,
And let the pressure come to pass;

I could give myself
To the currents of the thing,
And be led around
Like a doll on a string;

Maybe I could settle down,
Raise a family,
Grow some children,
And live happily;

So I stop and gaze around
At the other ghosts;
And their smiling, grey faces
Tell me that they're just hosts;

Their spirit had been torn out,
When the others had taken their bones;
Filled with recycled words and old ways,
They peck like chickens around their homes;

But I could still feel my own flesh,
Abandoned in the street;
Given to the Rats,
So that they themselves might have a treat;

And so I turn back to the
Crying thing on the ground;
Staring down at them, holding my salt,
Until my eyes clear of the tangible, worded sound;

And I see their true face
Despite what others may say;
I see the thing that was covered up and torn down,
Ripped apart to further express the Grey way;

And I toss my salt away, off into the crowd;

I toss it away and turn away from the Crier.
The ghost of myself parting the rapid spins
And storm with determination,
Back towards my boneless skins;

Sitting in the dust,
Surrounded by water and red,
I pick it from the stone,
And I feel how it is cold and dead;

Once more, I stop and look at the crowd,
And see that they are walking by;
Off in the distance, my ears open up
To the sound of the desperate ghostly cry;

And then my mind was made;

And I pulled one piece on like a coat;
And stepped into another;
A cap of dying mane
And the flesh felt as close as a brother;

Everything stopped,
Right after I fastened the last knot;
The people around me
Seemed to look lost in thought;

And then one of them opened their mouth;
Only to scream;
And the panic and disorder flowed
Like rain through a dream;

A mangled shell of muscle,
And a twirl of tissue;
I looked on at them,
As they cried at the new issue;

One of the Grey's had returned--Me!
And had crawled back into its old shell;
I was no longer one of them
And my mind finally chimed with a bell;

The Grey's wanted to convert
Every last one of us,
Every last color,
Into a new network of dependence and spectral trusts;

And, at this, I replied,
With a smile in place--
A single, cackle of victory--
As the rest paled their Grey face;

Standing alone,
This monster of me
Was the only color,
That was momentarily free;

Another colorless soul,
Dressed in flesh-rags of pink,
Like a broken baby
Before it can think;

To them,
I was an imposter;
To me,
They were the monster;

And, in the pit
Of the crowd,
I can see those
Who wish to break me down;

As they moved through,
I seen other colors,
Behind grey faces;
Along with others;

I call to them--
Questioning why they gave in to the swim,
Wondering what could have
Taken away their every will and whim;

But the ex-colors said nothing,
As they came at me with bats and blades;
I knew what was coming,
And on came the breaking games;

And I was broken again;

Down on the pavement,
I was left to rot;
Mind and soul withered
They were sure I forgot;

I wanted to laugh at this--
A dog put down twice
Will never again
Be truly nice;

As I lay in the dusty ground,
Staring at the sky,
I see in rings of dreams
As the world drifted by;

In Greys and broken days;

Time and sugar was bitter and prolonged,
And I stayed laying there,
Observing and dreaming,
Hearing the sounds that blared;

They forgot about my existence,
And I wasn't wanted either as a Grey;
Or as something that could be lead;
I was just something the others could use to play;

Tumbling and falling,
I could hear those others softly calling;
And I wondered if they'd hear me,
If I spoke after I stopped falling;

All day and night,
I studied my shell,
Wondering what was so wrong
With a little bit of hell;

And my thoughts turned Grey
Just like my once so bright soul,
And my mind, and my wonderments,
And the bitter, unforgiving cold;

Time passed and the screaming stopped;
Those other non-Greys stopped trying,
And all I could imagine
Was their suppressed crying;

Those Greying tempers
And wills to remain,
Being broken and chipped away
By the Grey consuming their frame;

So I blinked and I thought,
And I felt myself Grey as well,
Wondering and waiting
For something to break this spell;

The news swirled around,
Of the dying and the war;
And my eyes fell open,
As my mind did soar;

A war, they said?
But where have I
Ever found myself to have been?
Withering away into the cold night;

But what is war?
This something that I have never heard;
Was it some other color
That the Grey's have yet to smother like a bird?

And more whispers of fear
Fell down from passing mouths;
And I learned of the hunters of people
And the blood-thirsty hounds;

But these tales were gone
In a flash!
Just like the bombs that were dropped
Killing cities in toxic blasts;

And I heard something else
Speak and fall forward;
The hatred of the masses
Spurred from the lack of order;

A group coming to their senses
As one and a whole?
Something big must have happened
In order to give the emotions a roll;

But these stories were soon forgotten,
Drifted away along with the other Greys;
And I learned to forget about these things
Just like the too many passing days;

And I turned docile as a lamb;

Drifting into my own head,
Unable to surface,
Wilting under the flame,
That has never found rest;

My ghostly limbs curled,
Brittle like the paper
That crafted them,
And my ink began to fade and taper;

My skin rotted,
And decayed;
I barely recognized it anymore,
As it drifted away;

I was now as tainted
As a Grey;
And I didn't have a color or shell
To hold onto my name;

Laying there on the ground,
Covered in old blood,
I was startled awake
By a trampling of feet and mud;

I glanced up,
Up to where the sky once was,
And I seen the Grey sun
Was blocked becaus--

There stood a man!
Staring down with a face masked with another;
But I could see his eyes,
Blazing with topic and task;

He was a Grey
But that was only his outer shield;
Inside, I seen the fire that trembled the air,
A mind inside that was a beast to wield;

He asked what I was doing here,
And I replied with another question:
"What?" Unsure what he meant;
And he asked again, without hesitation;

But I could not come to an answer,
For his simple little inquire,
And he laughed about how I had
Allowed myself to expire;

He had walked away,
Before I had a chance to explain;
Something that would have given me
A place to put my say;

But the Grey's had swallowed him,
Leaving me here alone;
But my words urged me to
Find them all a home;

And I found myself glaring
Off into the distance;
To where he had gone
Leaving my soul in such distress;

And then I realized...

With startling discovery!
I knew at once what he had done;
And I found myself struggling;
Struggling to stand, remembering that I had once won;

I had been that dog
They had tore the legs from!
So that I would stay down
With thoughts so numb;

But when I finally stood, my eyes were blinded...

All I seen was my fellow Greys;
And my thoughts scattered,
Nearly making me forget
Why I had been so shattered;

No matter where I scanned,
There was nothing out there;
No fire or sweltering soul,
That made me remember to care;

And the Grey won;
And I gave in at that moment,
Feeling unneeded,
And forever burning and broken;

Like the pieces of a falling plane,
Or the burning structures of the past,
I knew that my firey will
Would not stand up or ever last;

And I learned to walk with the Greys;

I was treated like a damaged bird,
Cared for and accepted;
Because they couldn't remember
That I hadn't connected;

And I grew friends like plants,
And I learned to love
The swimming trends;
And I was painted white like a dove;

They kept me away from mirrors...

It was late into the night one evening,
As I cuddled up with my Grey mate,
That they told me that I was beautiful,
Such gentle hues of Grey;

And then I remembered;

And I asked, unhesitantly:
How they could say this
When they have no idea
What lies inside this Grey-ish abyss?

They laughed at my question,
Saying that it was too dark
For anything to spawn inside;
Other than dead air and ugly words;

And I stared at them through the dark;

And I had opened my mouth,
To say that I agreed with what they just said,
I would say that no one would want those words,
Because being ugly was worse than being dead...

But something fractured so violently,
And I found myself spilling from bed;
And my rage boiled through my Grey skin,
Coloring the floor with its many shades of red;

My mate stood from the nest of blankets,
As I stayed there on the ground,
Shell-shocked and pained;
And they asked what they had found;

They grimaced, asking why I was covered
In such filth and grime;
They motioned to the color, like it was a disease;
As I stared up at them, my gut knew that it was time;

They said that this was wrong,
Like they were speaking to a Grey child;
They ordered me to go clean myself up,
And he said there was someone he should have dialed;

They left me there,
Swirling in my rage,
And I still felt, sitting there on the floor,
Like I was immobile, trapped inside a cage;

Disgust had lined their expression,
And I held my Grey-Red skin,
Staining the floor, falling at the seams;
But I let myself be shattered like I was held together with a pin;

Standing, I could hear them in the other room,
Gossiping over the phone;
Said they couldn't believe
That they hadn't known;

I walk to the bathroom
And uncover the mirror;
Showing me what I could never see;
And it all became so very clear;

The Greys had never seen another Grey in me--
They had simply seen something to mold,
Something that they could shift and make;
They thought they could make me cold;

But, looking at my reflection,
I could see that the red
Had colored my Grey skin;
And I felt movement inside my head;

Questions
Wonder,
Everything swelled like
Thunder;

Ugly rage painted every inch of skin,
Leaking from my very pores;
Ugly, disgusting, abomination;
The Grey's words cut like thorns;

And then my mate entered the room,
Likely done with their phone call;
And I watched them through the mirror;
The look told me I would, again, need to fall;

They had called those that would break my spirit,
To come here so they could strip me
From this new colored flesh,
And take my growing bones that keep me free;

I told them no!

My mate said that I was a freak;
There was no one else as strange--
And I spun on them then,
Wondering how long I would be able to hold my rage;

And they fell after the attack, Grey blood leaking from slashed skin;

And I skinned them,
Patching up their flesh,
To create my own new shell,
Guarding my true skin like steel and mesh;

Out of the home and into the night,
Into the Grey darkness I ran,
Until I knew that I would win this fight;

I would keep standing, that was my plan;
I would know how to stay hidden,

Because color here is oh so forbidden.