The ONE

It was a lame attempt, really --
to wash the grotty street,
in those dark, early morning hours,
trying to remove, to conceal,
Sydney's insidious coating
of grime and grease and stain.

And it was a lame attempt
that gloomy, howling night,
to write what I did; that effort,
to exorcise the entrenched,
insipid, smothering fear of being
run-over, washed-up and useless.

"What do you want from me?
"When are you going to tell me?
"Is there any real hope for me?
"Can't you see what surrounds me?
"Can't you feel what I feel?
"Where is the reality of your promises?”

I wrote so much more,
that shadowless night.
That night the street cleaner's spray
washed up over my shoes, vainly
trying to cleanse me, to heal
the scourge and pain,
clawing hopelessly,
like a drowning, cornered rat.

No-one will ever see
the crumpled pages,
not a word of what I scrawled,
that night. It was just too dark;
too dark to read, to feel,
too dark to see, to know.
It was way, way too dark, even for me.

It is enough that I penned it at all --
But to allow others into that pain?
That isn't fair to them, to you.
There are none that understand.
No, not one.
Yet, I know I am wrong.