The Grey Ceiling



The seconds go by
Why won't they stop?
Silence;
Yet all I can hear is tick..tick..tick
Echoing in my mind

Upward I gaze as I lie in bed
No eyes, yet it stares back at me
And in it, I find similarity

We both are unmoving, unchanging;
Constant in state

As we are the same, we are different
We both cannot move, yet our reasons why differ;
You are what they would call "inanimate"
And I am what they would call "lazy"

But is that really what I am?
To the world it is,
But to me, it is not
As you look down on me,
Do you see it too? This affliction that woes me?

Cursed.
This lifeless mind I possess,
And limbs as free as can be
Simply make me a lonely puppet on a string;
After all, what good is a puppet without its puppeteer?

Thus unmoving, unchanging I remain
Plagued by this awful disease
That the world calls fragility

Am I weak?
I ponder as I gaze up at you
Despite asking, I know it's true
One glance at my arms is all it takes for you to see it too

Resigned to my fate, I contemplate
How many seconds more must tick by,
Before I am freed from this world?

The bottles on my bed rattle no longer,
The glass of water emptied
My vision begins to blur as I look at you once more,
And slowly the darkness comes over me

With a sigh of relief and one last grin,
I remain unmoving, unchanging
Forevermore.

About this poem

Apologies for any grammar or punctuation errors there may be. Please enjoy and interpret as you will.

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Written on September 18, 2021

Submitted by Astrea on September 19, 2021

Modified by Astrea on September 19, 2021

1:20 min read
7

Quick analysis:

Scheme AXXBX XCC BD XEXC XXXCC XXCBX XXC BFFF DAX EXXC XBE
Closest metre Iambic tetrameter
Characters 1,283
Words 265
Stanzas 11
Stanza Lengths 5, 3, 2, 4, 5, 5, 3, 4, 3, 4, 3

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    "The Grey Ceiling" Poetry.com. STANDS4 LLC, 2024. Web. 28 Mar. 2024. <https://www.poetry.com/poem/109964/the-grey-ceiling>.

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