The Duck Egg

Blue backed smile,
Toothless grin.
Fingerprints smoothing the curves;
Covering the scratches beneath.
It was a rough upper cut,
Knocking him right between the eyes,
Because they can't see him the way I do.
Under a fixed smile
And smudged, moulded lines,
White speckles,
Large freckles plaguing bobbled skin;
A duck egg, but not so, not as sweet,
Not that cuddly, baby blue,
But a deepness, like that of a lake,
A guarded, cold blue
Haunted.

He stands, a hand quavering up and down his face,
Nestling in an ever decreasing hairline,
He finally did it.
And He likes it this way;
On his own with a vast plane of anything,
Unamazed by it;
As long as it keeps the advancing space between him and the rest of the world.
An almost twilight sky closing in on him,
And the promise that, as it did,
He would find himself lucky to be alive tomorrow.
He appreciates it.

A dent in the silence leaves him to wander,
Not one for venturing,
He perches on a chair.
In front of the stairs,
Under the window,
Close enough to the kitchen to be shaken by the hum of the fridge,
All to observe to stars,
As he always did.
The moon threw shadows against his whitewashed face,
And made the clock spin, dizzily, showing many times at once.
As the stars shook themselves,
Hooking onto the dark blanket of the night,
Like bats, waiting for food, a victim.

Solitary, which here meant, a relished feeling,
A wrapped up, warm emotion,
Rather like that first overwhelming "I love you more than chocolate" feeling,
You got when you were a child,
That first thought that takes your breath away,
Something that you never thought could happen,
Don't understand,
But enjoy, in a strange way.

Light charged from the clouds,
Churning up the wheat,
Moulding the sky into a sinister pool,
Swirling the moon, cutting it into pieces,
Separating like rice in a pan,
Or a smashed mirror.
It was a reflection of himself,
A reminder of decisions he had made;
Something he detested,
The inevitable hermit crab.
On finding something that was not 'ordinary' in himself,
Hiding from it all, including those ugly,
Deep insecurities,
Like scars, they wouldn't leave him.
He threw off his shell,
Started anew,
Had a chance living with the 'sea slugs',
Who saw their faults, but hid behind nothing,
But, becoming afraid, he retreated back to the familiar.

He felt changed,
No longer his dark, deep blue,
Mysterious and interesting;
Instead, a mustard yellow,
The sickeningly, cowardly yellow.
Transformed from a possibility,
Sinking swiftly beneath the water,
Waiting for an opportunity to rise to the surface.
Now, the underbelly of the serpent,
Misunderstood,
Deceptive and evil?
The apple now rotten to the core,
Seeds remained healthy,
Willing and wanting of change,
A chance to finally prove something,
Hidden and buried beneath skin and flesh,
Ever hurtful reminder of surrendered possibilities.



Thank you Katt and Jammy for teaching me to spell serpent :) .. And I know you said it was pips, not seeds, but seeds sounded better :P