Staring Out - Nov 8 2023

 

Staring Out

Nov 8 2023

Floor-to-ceiling windows

with an Olympian view.

Furniture

hand-crafted

in exotic woods.

An immaculate kitchen

with all the latest gadgets

which were rarely actually used.

But in all that opulence

he felt unsettled,

not yet himself.

All that space

just made the emptiness

feel that much greater.

And in its showroom perfection

   —  no clutter, nothing out of place  —

it seemed cold, sterile, forbidding;

neither homey

nor lived-in.

He was a hard brittle object,

rattling around

in an over-sized box.

Expensively wrapped

and beautifully presented,

but no one

to give it to

surprise with it.

Unsure

what to do with himself,

he wandered from window to window

staring out,

nose pressed against the glass

until the fog of his breath

blocked the view.

A god, looking longingly down

from his high hermetic aerie

saddened

but the unfairness of it all,

envying

the earthly pleasures

it seems weren't meant for him.