Whitecoats

I never left that house in all my days: Treading the musty carpets by night in circling shades of bewilderment; Mumbling eightfold hirsute incantations to the inverted spiders; I paced the unsteady boundaries of my shrunken world, Backlit by a series of single dangling bulbs, Insulated by man-made mineral fibres and the crackle of static; Territory marked by coffee stains and crumbs of toast. Sometimes I tore at the walls until my nails screeched blackboards and my fingers bled, Recanting my confessions in a maelstrom of plaster-dust, Yet ever beckoned down from the vertiginous precipice: Shuffling baby-steps in slippered feet; Footfalls trailed through snowfalls, Towards the open-closed door.