White

White, absent of dark; no colors, no rainbows, nothing but the sound and sight of w h i t e e e…
Four walls, six by eight, padded cushions, a ceiling not quite white but of a grayish slate.
Arms bound in jackets hold, muffled voices, walk in rooms unknown.

I see shadows of feet as they pass softly and silently by my padded white door.
I scream for attention, yet my voice is muted, I cry aloud only for these walls by it to be refuted.

White, oh God, all this white, voices in my head, shadows that creep, silence now comes into my night.
I lie like a crumpled snowflake on the floor of a drifting snow.
Caught up in a whirlwind of no direction.
I know not now where I shall go.

Damn the whiteness that blinds my eyes.
Chase now dear Lord these demons which walk on the traces of my every sigh.
I seek the color of life, the green trees, the dark wood, the calling cry of a bubbling brook as fairies of the forest sing in unison about the sweet ‘By and By’…

Yet no dark wood, no babbling brook, no colors to taste only the sad whiteness of this my life, a life so misunderstood.
Free me now from these chains which bind my body and mind in this padded room of white.
Release me now, dear Lord from this bondage, so that I, somehow, someday shall make all things right.

J. Allen Wilson © 1/21/2014