Gray sky.
Gray trees, gray clouds above gray buildings, gray road.
Gray remnants of snow by the side. and it's like being blind, or somewhat,
bc everything melts together
and it's hard to tell where one thing ends and the next begins.
Until a red tail hawk swoops down upon some carrion.
Fluttering violently down then surging heavily upwards, some meat in it's claws,
struggling for the air to accept it again,
the red tail flashing bright against gray landscape. Gray asphalt.
Or until a clearing opens, gaping, between endless gray tree skeletons
and damp gray marshes,
yawning white where the snow hasn't been marred.
And there is a family of brown-gray deer picking through the snow for dried grasses,
looking for supper.
Four or five deer surrounded by white stand out against the consent gray
and focus my eyes that have gone blind again.
I can see the yellow and blue and green and black of roadway signs now,
signalling me to exit.
These roads were once so much part of my routine but are now hazy to me.
I think I know the way. But how can I be sure that those days past weren't just dreams that I have dreamt?
My friends sing sad love songs quietly into my ears,
maybe I'm wearing headphones.
I sit in the car in the parking lot and let the song finish.
The doctor's office is just a dark gray box against white-gray sky.
All the cars, even mine, are grey with snow and salt,
and dirt.
Waiting rooms are empty where ever I go. And silent.
So I listen to some jazz
but quietly,
like I might miss them if they call me, like Coltrane could drown out my name.
I would wait forever, until the staff politely but firmly informed me that it was closing time,
that everyone was going home, that I had to come back another day.
And it feels like that might happen, like I have been there for hours,
but they call me and I don't miss it
and I go in and have my exam.
After we have repeated my family history,
after she has asks me how much coffee/alcohol/water I drink,
how much vegetables/vitamins/meat I eat,
my doctor tells me about what might be bothering her today.
Her new intern,
her hectic schedule,
her cell phone won't work in this gray box,
her patients won't take her advice.
Nothing's different.
The staff is arguing about who has been there the longest, who knows the flaws better, who thinks they know best, who can fix it. They all know nothing will be fixed.
They run my credit card and I leave.
Walking out, a man is holding the door for the few before me, but he pantomimes slamming the door on me when it's my turn.
"Too late!" He says boisterously, grinning, but holds the door open for me.
I fake a smile.
I mumble a reply.
I climb back into my car thinking that
I will drive to my old High School,
I will drive to the apartment where my dad lived when he left our house,
I will drive to that lawn where a boy and I kissed under the sprinklers when it was summer time,
I will drive to that park where friends smoked hand-rolled cigarettes laced with cocaine,
I will drive to the roof top where we climbed,
I will drive to the bookstore where I bought used comics,
I will drive to that house where I slept on the floor next to the boy I had had a crush on,
I will drive to the railroad tracks and have a hot dog and watch the trains while I eat,
I will drive to that schoolyard where the older woman tried to pick me up and I almost let her,
but I drive into town instead.
I get a coffee.
And I move on to my next gray appointment.