The Apartment by Mark Barrett

The Apartment

by Mark Barrett

Slanted ceilings and beige walls catch the shadows and hold them captive,

casting images of objects in two or three times their actual size.

Grinning daydreams shape shift before my tired eyes.

Nodding off, I am startled awake by a distant, hacking cough.

I sit up and breathe deeply, blinking rapidly,

eyes wide and

willing dried contact lenses to adhere to pinhole pupils

as I attempt to stare off into the foggy reality ofmy perceptions.

The daydreams metamorphose into nightmares,

grins to mocking sneers.

Covering my eyes with the crook of my elbow,

I try to escape the turbulent waves of paranoia that wash over me

and the choking, desperate ambiance of this apartment.

Dark and hazy.

It is filled with myriad dreams and ambitions,

put on hold for one lost weekend.

So much potential

floating out of a single barred window and

sliding under the door

in search of the thin sliver of fading, brown-yellow light

which casts its life force down the dull, ambiguously colored hallway.

It projects a message of hope,

dimly pleading for someone to change the bulb before it dies out

and disappears into obsolescence.