The Question Mark waits to sliver

When
you sleep,
and walk tunnels of sleeplessness;

When
you talk
and the words splinter away like orphans;

When
you look into the mirror and
meet an undisclosed island from lost memory;

When
a smile rolls on your lips and
a scream begins to scratch the walls of your gut;

When you say a ‘hello’ and ‘am doing fine’,
and blood goes sour
and drips into your tongue;

When in the fever of your morning rush
you freeze in the kitchen…
like a blackening, blackening shadow,
silent, so screaming….

When,
the whole of TV is stirred and spent
and the whole of the day is slugged out and smoked,
when all the clothes are washed and dried,
and all the meal is sobered and swallowed,
When all the bills are panicked over and paid
and all the shopping is stuffed into our walls,
and all the medicines bought and beaten,
and all the diseases cut and cured,

When all of life is worn and worn out,
and all of us are masked and hidden…
…It still finds us,
Like that germ of the air…

It always nooses over,
The Question….

(Written at 3.43 pm, April 20, 2009)

Painting courtesy: http://www.superstock.com/