Stars have their dusty days
the sea sometimes turns a sickly green
when the emerald sparkle loses its shine
wedding rings get rusty
children’s joyful eyes
sometimes sting with salt
flowers wither with winter
mothers yell at their children
all the most “perfect” images of life
have their dull and dark moments

today it is okay
for me to fade to gray.

as a child
no one ever could believe my favorite color
could
be
light.
to be precise
the morning light on a cloudy day
the deep light dove gray
of the sun behind the clouds
yellow, they could believe
gold,
they loved the sheen
but not gray.
gray was plain boring,
simply too gray
I was told to pick another
pick another?
was it so preposterous that
I loved the color that
was to oft left behind?
they told me to be a normal child
and enjoy the random reds
the mediocre blues
the grassy greens
but it will always be that light
shade
of
gray
for me.

I'm staring to think there's a pattern
For the manner in which my eyes change color
How in the sunshine they are a vibrant starburst of green
And in the moonlight
They become overcast like the night skies

When they are green
Know that I am feeling one of two things
One being passionate and eager
Excited about a new day
A new beginning

Two
Know that I am hurt
For instance when you broke up with me
I counted and my eyes were green for eight consecutive days

Or like that time when I scratched my eye on accident
And tears streamed from my face
My eyes were green like the ivy that grows outside my house in the Spring
The moss that grows on the rocks in the creek
Shading them a dark mixture of dark green and gray
You would slip if you tried to climb on them
You could break a bone
Or your heart

But then again my eyes are always green when I cry
And they are only getting greener
More and more vibrant each day

And not ever notices it
But you did
And that's why I think it might be so hard to forget you

you were not a verse
or a stanza
or a meaningless jumble
of half-hearted words
and you were not just
the crossed-out name
in the back of my book

you were the ray of light
wedged between the pain
and how the colorful feelings
that decorated my mind
could never be put into words
no matter how hard i tried

you were never smudged gray
or ink stains on skin
and you were more than the substance
that spilled itself onto paper
because to me, you meant so much more
than a collection of words,

you were the story

Oh, what a beautiful world
We live in,

Colors are white-washed, filtered and cauterized,
Perfume is liberally used
The corpse of a doll could smell
like roses and fresh laundry.

Are we color-blind? Can we only see grey?
Perhaps the truth would be so blinding
It would take away even that.

The thunder boomed
and the rain poured.
The darkness loomed
the end of life's loving cord.

The old man walked alone
shivering cold far from home.
His feet like millstones
every moment an aching throb.
Every memory
like piercing shards,
every breath
choking and toiled.

His life spent
his youth wasted.
A life lived unfulfilled
a dream forgotten
and long decayed

The love he had
and the ones he held
now far gone.
The chances and opportunities
that came his way,
the mistakes and turns
that led him
to this wretched day.

What hope is there for him now?
This old Man of sorrow
what future lies ahead of his gray misery?
This wretched relic
of a long lost hope.

What will become of this man?
what does fate have in store.
Will he die slowly,
wretchedly alone?
Or will heaven
in it's tender mercies
take him quickly,
and take him swiftly?

Will God in heaven
forgive him for his wrongs?
Or will he suffer in agony
deep in eternity.

Will he ever repent?
Forsake his selfish ambitions
and return to the light?
Or will he sink even further into the pit?
For how can a man
with no strength nor love
With no hope nor anchor
survive the tempest?

How can he prevail
through the darkness?
When his light has been
snuffed out and his hope,
all but gone.
Like a ship with no rudder
his life flickered in between the pale.
Destruction has been his destination,
from the beginning
ruin his eternal hail.
He squandered and toyed
with the priceless gifts
he had been given.

The number of opportunity's
he had missed,
out weighed by far
the ones he made.

The love of others slowly
became cold towards him,
and slowly he began to fade.
Little by little
this old man of many sorrows sunk.
Deeper and deeper into despair.
He became dead inside
a dead man walking.

A walking man without life
his heart became hardened
and his dreams faded to gray.
His vision became blurred
and now here he is on this fateful day.






And now here he is
at the end of all things,
at the finish line of his life.
He is to be found alone and miserable.
His years of neglect
have at last caught up to him,
His tempered words
Fueled by the bottom of the bottomless bottle.

His foolish actions
and careless tongue,
some words had cut to deep
some hurts never again to heal.

Deep in thought
shivering cold.
Wasted by ruin and rot
life begins to release it's hold.
The cold deepens, his heart slows.

The darkness thickness
the reaper's eyes begin to glow.
The old man takes his last breath
of ragged air.
Which for so long
he had taken for granted.
Which for so long
he scorned upon and spat.

His time has now come
his days are at an end,
his life failing fast
his pitifully few memories now useless.

For what good are memories?
when they only remind you
of the chances you could of taken.
The hearts you could of known
the love you could have shared.
Now in the midst of the storm
in the hour of his blackest darkness
The rains came and the clouds covered the stars.

The light faded
like a burn out flame
it slowly whisked away.
And the thick blanket
of fear and uncertainty hovered close.

There upon his day of death
he laid his wretched head
upon the cold hard pillow.
And sank deep into darkness
and sank he did deep into everlasting despair
And that is how the story goes
The story of an old man  filled with deep regret
painful memory's and eternal burning sorrows

The old Man, who lived a life for himself.
The old Man who lived alone,
and who died alone.
Thus ends the tale of the lonely Man of Sorrows.

I am in love with gray sky mornings. They make me wish I sang mezzo-soprano. They make me wish I had a distinguished streak of white running through my hair. They make me wish I held all the wisdom I will ever possess, but with the sprite heart and energy of a 10 year old wearing worn out sneakers. Gray sky mornings seem to represent a middle world, an in-between plane of absolute sweetness and impending doom. But not the scary apocalyptic doom, rather the powerful, majestic and mysterious kind of doom. Gray sky mornings are the worlds way of saying hold your sunshine anecdotes of beauty and bliss, beauty is much too complicated to be confined to only the obvious blue bird scattered skies. Beauty is in the messy, the transitions, its in the muddling of good and not so good, its is the unknowns, the half-ways and the try and try and try agains. Beauty is in the grays.