It's dark,
It's silence
And it's nobody here.
In this room..full of fear.

There's a room full of vases
And each one is different.
Some have cracks,
Others, fractures;
Some have crumbled,
Others, shattered;
Some have different colours
In a patchwork pattern.
Some look whole and well
But only from a distance;
Others' cracks are so fine
Only the vase can tell it's broken.
But each vase is beautiful.
Each vase can be useful,
Be patched up and hold something.
This room full of vases
Appears sad to some,
But it is also
Brimming with life.

He sits next to me in the waiting room, his breath labored. He’s good looking, in his late twenties, wearing a red vest.
“Hi.” he says.
“Hello.”
His face is suntanned, but one electric white spark splits the colour of his forehead like a bolt of lightening. It confuses me for a moment, until I realise it’s a frown line that hasn’t tanned.
“Listen, mate...listen, mate. What’s your name?”
“Arthur…”
“Listen Arthur, can I call you Arthur?”
“Of course - Art if you like.”
“Listen Arthur – what are you in for?”
I put down my copy of ‘Perfect Home’ as the water dispenser blows a great gasping bubble.
“Bipolar.”
“Yeah? You being sectioned?”
“No, no. I’ve just come out of hospital. I’m having a review.”
“Right.” He chews his lip. “Do you reckon I’m gonna get sectioned then, or what?”
“Well - I don’t know. What are you here for?”
He sighs darting his eyes sideways, and his frown deepens.
“When I was sixteen I was at this party, right…”
“…Right…”
“And I was drinking. You know how it is. Few beers, bit of fun. You know how it is, right?”
“Yeah.”
“Yeah, so I’m at this party. And I feel sick, ok? So I go to the toilet. Nice toilet, friend’s house, pink bath, air freshener, nice. And I’m sick all over the place. What do they call it? Project summat...”
“Projectile vomiting…?”
“Yeah yeah, projectile vomiting. And then I gotta take a ****.” He lowers his voice, leaning into me. “So I’m all beery and I feel kinda terrible y’know? And I unzip my jeans and go to pull the old fella out…”
“Uh huh…”
“But there’s nothing there.”
“What do you mean there’s nothing there?”
“Exactly what I ******* say. My **** is just…gone. And I realise, right, that someone at that party has chopped it off. One of my friends. One of my friends has chopped my old fella off.”
I lock eyes with him.
“Jesus.”
“I know. One of my ******* friends.”
“And this was…?”
“When I was sixteen. Anyway. To cut a long story short – I went to Thailand a few years ago and I took this drug over there, some party drug. And my **** grew back. Everything’s been fine since then. But on Monday, well, you can imagine can’t you? I wake up and my **** has been chopped off again. Again. God knows who did it, but I've got a good idea...”
“And that’s why you’re here.”
“I’m here because I want them to find out the name of that party drug, the drug I got in Thailand, the one that worked. It worked. It actually worked, mate.”
“Was it ******?”
“**** knows, but it worked.” He rubs his face with both hands, sighing. “So, what’dya reckon? Do you reckon they’re gonna section me?”
Of course they’re going to ******* section you.
“I don’t know, mate. But I thought that my neighbours were poisoning my cat, and they weren’t too pleased about that. Do you get what I’m saying?”
My psychiatrist interrupts to call my name, standing at the mouth of the waiting room with a smile. I shake the man's hand and wish him all the best.
I look over my shoulder as I go down the corridor, and he picks up my copy of ‘Perfect Home’.
He puts his hand down his jeans, adjusting something.

You try to paint walls to hide cracks and cover holes to fill them up.

You hang up pretty pictures to try to take attention from the stains

And scatter pots and pans to stop the rain

But the room will always be the same

Its still the same place as it was yesterday.

The brush is still in the garage
on the cold, cement floor
beside the empty tin of paint,
its sides eternally dripping
with a dried, buttercup hue.

The walls which we smothered with color
are faded, now riddled with children’s earthy hand-prints
after a day in the mud. A mess to us,
the results of battles, safaris,
and space travels to them.

I could paint over the marks,
start over fresh and show off to friends.
But I think I’ll let it be.
No longer the bright yellow of a sun trapped in a painting,
these four walls have still brightened many days.

There has been roaring laughter,
divided by a few screaming matches
that have made the dog whimper.
This room has seen much of our lives,
and life cannot be painted over so easily.

So it stays. The color will always be buttercup to me.