constrained

Constrained

The walls, yellow, like his teeth, stained,
By years of nicotine addiction and smoke exhalation,
Peeling and cracked like his skin, which,
Falls away in little scurrying clouds of sunlit debris,
To add to the debris of the filthy floor tiles, no longer shiny
Age has worn them; feet have dulled them, shuffling, un-lifted feet,
The sad, heavy footsteps of a bone weary, soul tired, worn individual,
Leaving the comforting safety of bed when he must, when the body,
Needs,
Needs, demands, lusts, yearnings, wants,
Things he remembers but has lost in the grey settling dust.
The single spear of light seeping through the crack in the window,
Is the only outside remaining. He never peers into the light,
Afraid of the things he might see, what may be revealed.
Yellow the fingers the flesh of his self,
Black the tarred interior of lungs.
Red-rimmed the fringes, the whites of his eyes,
Empty and sterile the depths of his soul,
He wallows alone this one in this pitiful hole.