Hopelessly Helpless

Grey

Grey like mist, grey like rain

A grey that holds all my pain

No matter the day, no matter the time

Grey ensures I pay my fine

Beneath the surface, under the mask

Life becomes a hard brought task

Prepare yourself, my minds a maze,

Frankly, mom, it's not a faze

The envelope is grey. A muted tone that sucks the life out of me, drawing the corners of my mouth downwards and eliciting a single tear to trickle across my cheek. Furiously I wipe it away, the fibrous fabric of my sleeve scratching my too pale skin in the process. Squeezing my eyes shut I let out a breath in hopes of easing the ever-growing pressure building behind my lids.

A pointless mechanism, that's what tears were, simply a waste of water. And yet there, pooled at my feet, sits a puddle of water seasoned with salt. How ironic.

Absentmindedly I toy with the bent-over edges of the envelope and trace along the dark, now-smudged line, that reads "Delilah" in careful cursive loops, the 'l's' resembling taught ropes. With shaking fingers, I bring the rough material closer so that it rests just beneath my nose. Each tentative breath brings with it the musty scent of paper, a smell that is almost -but not quite- hidden beneath the overwhelming antiseptic layer. A layer that covers everything in this wretched place.

The paper crinkles as I slowly pull it from the musty grey nest, the corners butter soft from frequent use. With habitual reluctance my eyes scan the messages scribbled half-heartedly across the page, the action a routine and each penciled word a separate punch to the gut. Although meant to be reassuring, the graphite notes are far from. They are simply temporary, something that could be erased from my life within a matter of seconds. However fragile, their meaning will never be lost, for each small scratch made on that page rests with permanence in my mind's eye. I could recite the entire letter front to back if asked to. It's sad really.

I let out a choked laughter at the "I'll miss yous" and the "I love yous" and the "I hope you get better soons" that cover the page. They sound more like apologies each time I read them.

Their sympathy changes nothing for me. Tomorrow the men will come again, asking their questions. Getting no answers. Tomorrow I will cry again. Tomorrow will be grey again. Tomorrow has become an endless loop. When will tomorrow ever end?

Weary with existence I focus my eyes back on the envelope. These small kind words will get me through. They will be enough. Because they have to be, they just have to.

So I force myself to look. And I look long and hard. In fact I look so long and so hard that the grey has meaning and the grey has difference.

With a keen eye I can verily note the difference in contrasting shades. How the grey of this envelope is slightly darker than the walls which cage me in. With another look, it is quite evident that this grey is two shades lighter than the afternoon sky in which a city continues along without me, in which a life passes me by. When I scrunch my brows and peer through the slits of my eyes the grey of my letter is quite obviously half a shade darker than my hospital gown. With a microscopic view one might even notice that this grey is a thousand times lighter than my hope... for my hope, just like her, ceases to exist.

For her and for I remains a darkness one thousand times worse than a hospital grey.