The Blackened Room
A Poem
open the door
step inside the contours of your fear
caress the warp in your perception
that braids devastation to your cranium
tight like rows of Negro corn
as each footfall draws you deeper
wrap yourself in the blackness
like a discomforted comforter
too warm that leaves you sweaty restless
confused discombobulated equilibrium
dissolve matter into the ether
argue spiritedly with the lives
you’d meant to live before …
this
the door groans shut behind you
cuts off all possibility of escape
bidden by the highest bidder
who enslaves you to new terror
bitter as the sea salt that transported
anxiety-addled chattel from foreign sands
through the hourglass you are diminished
once plucked from indigenous land and
cast onto red-soaked soil unfit for your roots
shrunk down to near enough to nothingness
pulverized in aggregate to be ground down
into building blocks of oppressive freedom
shackled by the petrification of
ambition and unfreed wills
a testament to the death of one’s hope
newly nested in pathology
that holds you fetal fragile like an eggshell
broken open oozes unrestrained
like a liquefied scream
a race to fill cracks and crevices
whips quickly across sullen floorboards
desperate search for unattainable wholeness
in the fetid dank vacuum of a space
that proffers no gentle companionship
on the journey to pernicious perdition
just a middle passage from here
to where fear lurks in dark corners
waiting.
© A. Gregory Frankson, 2020. All rights reserved.
Greg Frankson is a former Canadian national poetry slam champion with words published in collections, anthologies, audiovisual recordings and literary journals. He was the poet laureate for the International Initiative for Mental Health Leadership and an on-air current affairs poetic commentator for CBC Radio One. Follow Greg on Twitter and Instagram (@greg_frankson).
