Return To The Blank Room

Return To The Blank Room
© Surazeus
2026 02 05

John wakes up when Fate knocks on his fake door 
with polite insistence of the wet towel 
so he argues with cracked cup at the sink 
while history drips on germ-infested floor 
with calm regret for leaving the burned book 
on the bench in the park where small frogs think. 

Eating eggs and sausage smeared with vain sauce 
at wobbly table set with common sense, 
John thinks about the girl with long red hair 
who never will wave from the train he missed, 
then awkwardly tangles his trench coat on, 
and wears bowler he forgot in the bar. 

Certain he will return to the blank room 
sooner or later with ashamed respect 
for trembling body that Death passes by, 
John thinks about the time he kissed her cheek 
beneath the streetlamp that judges his failure, 
concerned the moon clocks out before his time. 

If we will become briefly infinite, 
despite the way typewriters erase truth 
with holy racket of the gangster code, 
John chooses to believe with wounded heart 
that Tomorrow will forgive our worst sins, 
though Fate records our deeds with broken pencil. 

Since love says nothing about jokes he tells, 
which not even cruel laughter can erase, 
John decides that is the trick of brave faith, 
so he leaves unpolished shoes by the bed 
which walk away while he is fast asleep 
and visits the graveyard where no one lies. 

Arranging numbers in accounting books 
with professional focus of sharp puzzles, 
John misplaces his soul in the bookstore 
where he has never been before the fall, 
forever alone just outside the door 
where he cannot hear her voice in the glass. 

When John hums sad tune of Amazing Grace 
even Death leans in to listen with hope 
though he always gets the simple tune wrong, 
so he sells record of his latest hit 
to Death who breaks it on rock of salvation 
because lyric truth makes him want to cry. 

Because the moon measures passage of time 
in harmony with fast typewriter dance, 
John decides time is sequence of weird words 
that keep arriving with permissive shock 
at vastness from the silent pause of faith 
between each knock that Death raps on his door.