Staring at the Ceiling

"Staring at the Ceiling"

You ask why I’m standing so still.
Still? My dear,
there’s a battle raging in my head.

The louder the pounding,
the deeper I stare
at tiles dripping with water.

My eyes wander
along a stained line of grout.
No matter how much you scrub,
it won’t come clean.

And neither will I.

I surrender to the thundering thoughts.
The lower I bow my head,
the louder they get.

Then suddenly, a thought!
Unexpected, really.
What if, instead of down,
I looked up?

My tilted head
rests on my neck,
and above me...
a new world.

And just like that, the pounding stops.
As if all my life
my thoughts had been fighting
only to reach the crown of my head.

But why?
What are they looking for?
Do they knock on my skull
like on a glass ceiling?

Do my thoughts
work in corporations,
clutching sour coffee,
complaining about their fate?

Are they well paid,
those thoughts of mine?
Paid? Good question!
And who’s footing the bill?

Is it me? In what currency?
Just not in sleep, please...
For if so,
I’m doomed.

My days are numbered.
Any minute now,
the union
will knock on my door.

Ah, so that’s it.
Maybe that pounding
was the knocking all along,
a debt long overdue.

You see,
you ask why I’m standing so still,
staring at the yellowed ceiling.

My dear, it’s because I’m seeing it
for the very first time.
And with every stain I notice,
the noise inside my head grows quiet.

My dear, it seems
I’ve spent a lifetime, aching,
studying the floor,
when all I had to do
was look up.