Lives Behind Glass

The banker…

Clad in his tailored suit,

 his tie a leash,

entrapped like a goldfish in a bowl of spreadsheets,

circling the same decimal reef day after day,

his mask of smiles pressed against an aquarium wall of ambition.

Eleanor…

Her house a plastic kingdom,

bright,

 hollow,

 where routines rule like tyrants in glittering crowns.

Her fingers raw like coral scraped by tide,

finishes folding the same shirt for the fifth time today.

Then onto the soup,

 stirring the silence of dreams clinging to the edges of her mind

like seaweed on a forgotten wreck.

Don…

In row 3,

sits in desk chair 7 of the classroom,

a betta fish flaring beneath flickering fluorescents,

his mind a kaleidoscope of color,

 boxed in by rubrics.

Such is the vacuum  tank,

 the water chlorinated with expectations

as his thoughts dart like minnows,

quick,

 brilliant,

 ignored.

 The floor beneath him with broken rules,

barely whispers the rebellion buried deep in his gut like fossils.

The old man…

Living out time in a nursing home,

a koi in a pond too small for memory,

 his recall dulled by time,

 his stories evaporating like mist on the surface.

 He watches the world through a fogged transparency,

 where no one taps anymore.

All of them fishbowl-like captives,

swimming in loops of invisible glass,

where freedom is a rumor and the sky is just a ceiling painted with light.

Determination appears…

The bowl doesn’t crack,

it explodes.

captivity shatters like a meteor shower,

penetrating silence,

drowning ceases,

memory unburies,

breath returns,

raw, burning,

alive.

Suddenly…

The outside, the world is no longer a shape.

 It’s motion

. It’s chaos.

 It’s wind in the lungs.

 The current grabs you,

not gently,

 but like truth dragging you from sleep.

You don’t swim.

 You are swept.

 You don’t choose.

 You become.

 And for the first time,

You are not seen,

You see.