"out of the fray and fret"

"out of the fray and fret"

for anyone who lives alone, and feels perhaps forgotten

~L. Page

he has played the hero, but no one knows/his sacrifice, only the sanity and body his own/and the loss of that which could have saved him/was the cost, that what left him all alone/

outside footfalls descending the wooden stairwell/his the bottom floor apartment/tucked away behind the hidden doorway/never emerging except by darkness/

rhythmic, soft thump thump thump on the other side/of the wall where there should have been a bed/perhaps the sound of the honeymoon suite/merely the washing machine and dryer instead/

and not even his own, all the neighbors/picking the prime time of day, and Saturday/tending to the normal, but for him what's left/is all he can do not to throw it all away/

this is how he saves the day/to hole himself up, here out of the fray/and fret, out of the traffic, to stray/from all whose else, it's the only way/to protect themselves from his decay/

(c) 2008 Leah Randelle