Grey

Everything is grey.

-

I repainted the walls and they came out

just as they started.

-

I moved between countries and found nothing had changed.

-

My blood blended with my tears atop my skin,

the walls tangled closely with the features I’d curated

and the cars outside were tightly camouflaged with the tarmac, hot

beneath my bare feet.

-

The noise they made was ambient and droning,

the sounds of an engine, echoed by a vast city.

-

The alcohol was tasteless, the food

was mush and cold to the touch,

your tongue retreated and tried to run.

-

You ran until your feet bled searching

for difference

and still couldn’t find a thing.

-

Everybody happily donned their uniform each morning

and marched together to the beat of the churning,

the metal collided at entirely new speeds

and left behind no traces,

-

the shredded shrapnel melting into the ground

-

the quicksand, invisible,

dragging us all down,

the horror, the horror,

you shaved your head and searched for meaning

but found chaos and deception.

-

They tattooed you with bar codes

and discounts,

you sold yourself cheap

with a smile on your face.

-

There truly are no rules, you drive yourself insane looking

for patterns in the landscape,

you run in circles, you run in circles,

looking for morality in the government

hunting for animals without instincts

punching mirrors until your hands matched the colour of everything else

a lifeless pallor.

-

The sea smirked and whistled when it realised

your own realisation.

-

It had known the same things all along

but hadn’t told a soul.