Knocking on Doors

 

I knock on those doors

Day after day, night after night

A multiverse of colour

Those doors are

Your bog-standard reds, greens, blues, yellows

But, also, rarer colours

Doors of Amaranth and Xanadu

Smargadine and Mikado

Coquelicot and Glaucous

Names far prettier and evocative then those of their parents.

 

Not all doors are opened

And those that are — that popular refrain

Please, not us, not now, anyone else, please

I rarely listen and rather just brush past

Into the anteroom of their lives

Shabby and sad

Filled with memories

 

That’s all they will be now — memories

Oh, I should not have opened the door

Most will say

Why? Why did I open the door?

I seldom have the courage to tell them

They don’t open the door, I do

They just leave it unlocked

 

My knock is more powerful

Than they can ever understand

Why should I even bother trying to explain?

I have before

A waste

A waste of time

The very thing that

I am taking from them

Time

Why spend the remainder

Discussing such trivialities

As the nature of a knock?

 

Accept it, just take it easy

Take a seat in the corner

Your favourite seat

The comfortable one

Leather, brown

The one that grows from you

 

Take a seat there

Relax

Let me work

It’s over now

I must hurry though

I won’t hurry you

I promise not to

You will not know I’m in a rush

But I am

A dreadful rush

A rush that will never end

I have many, many more doors to knock on

An orange one after you

Followed by a dull green

And then something navy and uninviting

But I am invited

I am always invited

 

© Liam Power 2021