Through the Window

I sit down and look through my window
Out into the darkness

Everything is cloaked in
the silence of the night

Once my eyes adjust,
I can just make out shapes
Rectangles and circles
Squares and triangles

My world doesn’t have these things
All my world has is a blank empty space
My life is filled with nobody but me
A never ending prison

Nobody knows where I am
Nobody will ever know who I am

Through the window
A light
breaks through
A beautiful and pure light
Not a lot at first
Just enough

Just enough for the world to be bathed
in a soft, sleepy, grey light
Just enough for all these shapes to be
identified into actual objects

Houses, cars, dogs
Everything I have ever dreamed of
My world doesn’t have these things
All my world has is a blank, empty space

I am all alone in my life
Nobody to talk to
Nobody lives in my life
Nobody but me

Through the window, I see
Things are starting to move
Lights are turned on
Doors are opened

I sometimes like to imagine what it would be like
to go through the window
To live in that happy life
To have no worries or troubles

There is noise now
Gentle and quiet
Perfect harmony
Those noises are what shapes their reality

The kids shout goodbye as they leave for school
Adults start up their cars
All of this is perfectly normal
They would never dream of it being any different

What is it like to live in that world?
I will never know

For I am trapped in this prison of my world
Day after Day
Year after Year
Until the day I die

I will forever
look through the window
at this happy,
peaceful world

I will forever dream
of living in such a place
Which I will never reach
from the prison that is my life
- Isabel Chapman