This black in white

Am I here now? Once I ask and twice turn by my nape just in case.

Am I here now, down from the terrace of a place did I lose my place in?

I am not upstairs. I am here. I am here. So ahead may you go.

White paper, thin lines but black in the shade of another, whilst drenches the board some strokes of bottle green from a brush of some stranger unknown.

White paper on my lap. Peeping through some black lines, I behold them on the face like a palimpsest on an arcane wall for whom has it been a decade of abandonment. May it be just as oblivious now. Is it?

White paper, spaces with such fine demarcation - what! A chimera almost for me. What! No! Am I not in senses to tell. But I am. I am. I am you see. Can you not tell? 

Standing asunder, how incredible a craft of hands or machines, a pity for me to cry about! Standing apart art these spaces with black lines… black lines and underneath it the hardcore, a bed of that green that did grasses never grow with under the skin of my bare feet. They sit – all of them on my lap. They sit – my right arm on the layout, my left just holding the book tight. They sit – my feet with the shank entirely naked with thistles that I never notice, or never care to. What do you say? What art thee saying?

Am I a man now? All of these and some of that, on and on as my mind may churn while wonder I if ‘tis an abode it carves in this world I already live. What imagination! Alas! What this imagination of mine. I have not even read Keats yet. If so, I will fly; if so, I will switch at the drop of a hat; and if so, I will beg myself to sojourn just a little longer and explore the depths of what hath I never seen – I may as well swim underneath someone else’s skin. ‘Twill be different for me, inside a skin not my own.

Hath thee worn one? ‘Twill be lighter to have a shade so ironical to say for this crude color invites so much of sunlight. I tried being someone else today. Did I? I ask, I ask, and I ask to be sure. I heard her sing her song again. ‘Twas not the first time, nor the second, nor the third, but just another in row. I heard her voice bereft of her company, the music they employ so well, and how I struggle to find them there sometimes. I heard her with no body. “I say, I say ... I am on my way…” so she sang and plucked the strings of her piano just right to tear my eyes out. Why should it aid me seek out the reason will I look for anyway, that I am looking for anyway. Why! Oh you man and woman of my kin, when did thee steal me sight when was I blinking? I let thee. Alack! I LET THEE! Shame on me!

So flap my eye lids with as much a desire to close as to open, the hair on the edge being the only one clean for hath I wetted them one to many times indeed. I envisage I am already somewhat lost. Why, can’t you tell? Must thee be blind too. Why! Can thee deny? I think I am. But I think not right just yet. Alas! ‘tis hard for me to aid it. Keep it from me, someone! Let me not have it. Why, I can’t help it still. Am I here to conjecture now? Now summons me my paving. I slept quite well, bothered in betwixt kicks of my feet juxtaposed closely on the grill embraced in eight complete layers of dead corrosion. That’s how long I have known the bed – oh this bed – my pubescence its birthday. Ahoy! Beckons me my line of stones. Must I cease talking for ‘tis an hour of the kind thee should know when is my life demanded for real.

I am asked to die and be alive. I am asked to let the cold in and shut my system down on every corner. See how I fail and do it just enough. I am commanded to burn; ‘tis my duty to. I burn until behold my eyne ashes fall from the black night sky, stars twinkling right through the grubby dust of it all – my tears the sticky gum and sticks the powder on my face. Alas! I am all black now. Tell me if I am ugly. Am I ugly? Alack! How much? I saunter. My lane calls me now. Why! Did thee not hear? Must I saunter now for hath I. Must I pace again, back and forth till inside my soft bosom is something not so fragile sought. Must I walk because my feet, uncovered where they are, just sensed the cold zephyr pass them by. You see, I think I am alive now. Did I die?

When did I die? So trudge I in name, trudge I just to say – my feet trample the stones both black and grey, and rubber colored red, green and white. So cold art me feet now. Am I walking on ice? Strange how the fire inside is doing nothing at all. And things I rummage, but think I of the people most unimaginable in my head – Tony, Chris, Majix, and some whom art guests of mine, yet always invited by mistake. Alas! Has the resentment got at me? God! Will I be saved, this time again? The music is loud, and the echoes louder.

Clara’s voice painful so I hurt. And I continue to hear her a little more. Strange again, hah! Strange how I am in my rotunda now when I lose my mind all in tandem. How oh heavens of my Lord! How now! Am I so in and out of my head. What is this hell? I swirl by the only rope that comes my way, and recall Liddy Ring. Why! Did she make me do it? She is not even in my head thou see. It is Mae’s melody instead. What is happening? I descry three stairs in off-white that lead up – the will-o’-the-wisp of my childhood and one still too far from my hands in the neighborhood that call I as my own, if not this house for Heaven’s sake! - The stairs in white, some sallow light on them with a tinge of tangerine.

They lead up but the rest is dark. Don’t you wonder if there is an ingénue, stupid and silly little girl at the corner which faces the end of the wall? Don’t you? Don’t you, at all? I ask. I ask you for ‘tis a mistake if ‘tis hide and seek for you. Why! Who is playing? Do you see anyone? I ask. I ask you as I saw a shadow move. Thus, hiding she plays out, but seeking her is none in the corridor. I am merely six feet away from her mother. Shall I tell her where her daughter hides? I am afraid I will scream more than I will speak. There is another, a mansion in white again but art no lights on at night. I figure no one’s home tonight. There is another facing my rear. It has a fluorescent tube on. Heck! ‘tis white. Heck! How white. Why white? I do not turn. I do not dare. I am beholding the silhouette of my black shadow sketched on a wall painted in some pale auburn. It moves as I move. It tilts as I do. The wall’s not on my way. I am on it. I do it deliberately. I want to study her. Who is she in my shape? What is happening?