Today the world was painted a lovely shade of gray
I could have sat in the rain and watched it all day
As the strange, fickle hues of gray sky changed
But life doesn’t allow me to live that way.

I awoke each morning, without warning
They came from the front door,
And at night the candles were barely well lit,
They were silent and yet I couldn't
Ignore, this is...what is this?
A vile voice and angry specter
Filling my night with gloom,
Now all that was left, my empty space,
For horrors I would brace ,
I couldn't get them out of my face.
This each night they came again,
Banging cupboards while I slept,
Spinning sofas, shooting rubber bands.
They kept invading my dreams,
Upon my shoulder I saw a hand,
A reflection in a portrait of skulls,
A face of an old graying man...*
All of this and more. All of this sent me off my rocker,
I lost my nerve but couldn't settle the score,
I had no idea what they wanted. I was scared
Within inches of my life they were everywhere,
Like the scattering tiny feet of mice.
And a small little puppet twists his face up
Upon my bed, then a native over the same area
With Tomahawk ready, swinging over his head,
Huge spiders appeared upon the ceiling overhead,
And still I was somehow not aware at that,
But they drove me over the edge.
Her feet in the air while lying on the sofa, long hair,
A glaze in her eyes, hate behind the dark disguise,
It's sad to say I had no idea what I'd seen back then,
But it kept going on and on and on.
Close they always followed, they wouldn't let me be,
But I tell you for once a real haunting thing or three,
All I really know is they just wouldn't let me be free...
No matter what I know, no matter what I dream,
Every now and then something moves to scare me.
I know that it's weird and can't find proof or come close,
But all through the years it appears it was a "Gray Winged Ghost."

Everything around me is gray
People phase in and out
Friends just kinda are there
Your family stands in the background
Like an old, grainy, black and white picture
Rain falls in time with your tears
Who can tell you're even there
Like a ghost you flit in and out of life
A spectator to everything
Participant in nothing
Life just seems...kind of bland

if i could
i would trace the skyline of your body with my lips
and colour you in sunset with my fingertips

i would etch sonnets into your back
about the days and nights
that i lack your presence

my words would paint pictures of grey skies
because you are the sun
and all i see is rain when you are not around

Delicacies of darkness,
Intricacies of energy;
Witches of woe
Insinuating that nothing we pass is past,
As all beginnings were long since begun.

Protecting an abnormality,
That would rather be condemned,
By self-centered ambition of men.
An insanity that turns her right, round again.

Now if now only.
Living by wick and glee of natural ability.
You would come and dare,
Old sentimentality and whimsicality,
Rampart of myths and misconceptions.

To indulge in mischievous play
Under the indigo sky,
By the light of a spiral of far fire.
The journey starts by stealing hearts
If only now you would come I should be happy.

And it's all over.
All of it.
Thudding our way down the rabbit hole,
We finally found the bottom.
It finally came to a flaming end.

The many years of perfect storms, first emotions
And raw desire
Have finally reached their drought,
Silenced with the recent memory of an apathetic stare.

"Is this doing anything for you," he said.
And I, with a "No," stopped all motion,
Stuck in position that may have once
Driven him wild.
But there was nothing, now
And everything we once had seemed to sigh in that moment,
Gray and tired.

I was no longer his goddess.
He was no longer my muse.
We had exhausted every corner of each other -
And now we had finally discovered the parts of ourselves
Who no longer could give a ****,
Even in our once tireless animalistic urges.

And although it ended sourly,
It ended with a, "good."

I baked your skin onto the asphalt with my oven eyes
Between Macdougal and Bleecker street
Where i first met you.
Everything gray reminds me of you.
I envisioned myself
Breaking into song and dance
With everybody down every cross road,
Belting a ballad of beauty and admiration
About what you and I once were.
I relived that moment when i cried,
“She’s really gone this time”...
Yet as much as i missed her,
all i did was sway in the traffic
Of business men and women
And homeless dogs and all those
Crazy jazz cats.
I stepped precisely on each crack
I swear i didn’t mean to break your back,
Or my word that bound us
As close as the moon and the sun.
A funny promise that made my nose
Shrivel up.
I lay on the hot asphalt between Macdougal and Bleecker street,
Heartless,
Dreaming of you to come back to me.


© 2016 D.M.V

Today is one of those days
when your throat is sore for no reason
and your voice scratches its way out of your esophagus;
like an old CD, skipping, and stopping at certain intervals.
Overcast, the sky is an apathetic shade of dolphin grey
The pressure of the inevitable rain, pressing;
holding you with the weight of the sun hidden behind.
Today is one of those days
when you cannot drag yourself out of sleep,
even though you’ve slept for a day and a quarter.
A day where you don’t want to eat,
but you’re still shaking from the hunger
and coffee and cigarettes are all that will do the trick.
Sitting on the pavement, damp and wet.
It hasn’t rained yet but we still never forget
the way the cold feels against our jeans;
smoking cigarette butts, discarded dreams.
With old LCD screens out scratched phones shine
signifying how broken our view of the world may be-
but, clearly, we still see.
As we take random pills we found and pretend we are high-
we drink cheap liquor and curse at the sky.
Sitting on the curb, in the literal gutter,
Loitering’s a constant when you have nowhere to go.
Walking for hours
in rain, heat or snow,
our lives in a bag,
wearing the same clothes.
Showering in a gas station sink,
shoplifting to eat,
the parks were our bed
the bleachers our dining rooms.
The shelter kicked us out for fighting that old guy
and the soup kitchens didn’t feed us
because we didn’t have the proper paperwork.
Our skin is grey and pale as the sky,
our eyes are full of light
as our brain starts to die;
but we are free,
and we fly-
                          “wild birds.”

In a world painted black and white,
my vision blends into a shade of gray.
The colors swirl in a clockwise motion,
as if rejecting the mixture of pigments.

Slowly, they fuse into a solid gray tincture.
It is a beautiful color.
The right amount of black and white still evident,
yet the trait to be a distinctive color remains.

In a world painted black and white,
we are opted to pick a side.
Two completely different beliefs,
standing upon their own ethical points.

I am caught in between and seek answers.
We ask and wonder where we belong.
But for now, I will dwell in the blotches of gray
in the divisions of monochrome.