I live in a room
without a heart—
not that I’m gone,
but it feels that part.
They used to come,
“Grandma’s new place!”—
a pool, a clubhouse,
wide-open space.
But had I known
it was a guise,
to strip me bare
of dignity’s prize,
I’d have stayed
in my home, my own,
where the hallway’s worn
by children grown,
their racing feet,
their candy smears,
walls alive
with fleeting years.
There, my husband
planted a tree—
a fragile shoot,
now wild and free.
It claimed the shed,
but that’s its right—
to stretch, to grow,
to seek the light.
This room is cold,
walls stark and white,
no pets allowed—
oh, how I fight
to see my kitten,
socks of gray,
basking somewhere
in sunlit play.
I love the sun,
but these old bones
creep down halls,
past steel and stone—
elevator, gate,
a bench to find—
too far for age
to ease my mind.
I miss my son.
He’s doing well,
a job, a plan,
or so they tell—
insurance, something,
a 401k?
Hard to recall
what he’d say.
What day is it?
I’ve lost my track—
no calendar here,
just walls of lack.
I’d scratch out sticks,
in fives they’d climb,
to mark the days,
to claw back time.
It might be Sunday—
chapel hums.
I’ll talk to Dad
when the moment comes.
A confession, Lord,
I’m worn, I’m through—
I want the home
you promised true,
the room you carved
with my own name.
Will my husband wait,
his smile the same?
He was the good one,
lending a hand—
I was like that
in a kinder land.
This place has drained
my shade to blue.
I shouldn’t say it—
they’d misconstrue,
put me “on watch”
if they heard my plea.
But that’s not me,
not my decree.
I cling to life,
at least for now,
though joy’s a ghost
I disavow.
I live in a room—
a hollow shell—
a prisoner’s tale
I’ve come to tell.
BB Grey--musings 
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