Black Door - (depressing poem)

Black Door
 

This may make you uncomfortable.

No one wants to hear a white, middle-aged man
Who had good looks
Solid parents
A thinking brain
A loving family
Say what I am going to say.
It tastes like lemon juice
In your morning cereal
“What the hell’s wrong with this guy?”
Is your safest comment
That way
It won’t happen
To
You

Because the black door appeared again

And opened
At 3am again this morning.

I cried when I heard it coming, scraping

That wood sounds so dry
The door against the floor
Neither with any moisture

Like old bones being pushed

In a poor man's casket

I closed my eyes

And they burned with that cold

That feels all over

And willed sleep to come back

But it hid, too.

When I opened them

It was there
In the corner
In front of the other door
That mere hours before
My Love and I 
Had laughingly passed.

That’s how it works.
When my happiness threatens it

When life appears to soften
That’s when
Wherever it lives
Opens its own eyes
This black door
And it is hungry.

So now I lay in bed
Eyes closed against the filth
The disappointment
But the door swings anyway
And lets escape its dark light
And behind my eyes
They come out.

--Eric Marley

February 2013