In this room, is one of four walls
Where there once contained
A great picture window
I would stare as the sun shone through
At the beauty beyond each pane
There was life on the other side
And a life on this side
One day a bird, unknowing, unseeing
Crashed into the window
I watched as it lay twitching
Wing bent, neck broken
The last moments as it clung to life
Given to me, to remember
In this I keep a vague memory
Of someone’s laughter
On the other side of the window
Looking in
Once so bright and clean
I couldn’t imagine being anywhere else
Until dark and screaming
There was nowhere else
The laughter and the screams would not cease
So, I boarded up the window, painted over
Ignoring the spilled things, littering the floor
Like so many dead flies
On a Wednesday afternoon
Where I sit, staring at the blank wall
As the hours give way
To the fading, cracked, peeling paint
This room elicits no response
As it’s quiet here, now, always
Deaf ears absorb each plea
I manage to whisper, forsaken prayers
Bludgeoned against my wall, lie broken
Atop the days I have lost, given
To this solitude, a sacrifice in hiding
From the beauty that mocks
On the other side of broken things