Poetry

Sitting in the Most Ordinary Room

From ‘Four Frames of Reality’

I lift up my cup.
It has a stain,
brown or yellow the moment tells me.
I drink some coffee.
The black liquid feels light on my tongue
and I swallow.
I put the cup back on the table,
let it mark the wooden surface.
I smile through my beard.
The window besides me is broken in three places
and it's dirty.
It doesn't open,
hasn't in nine years.
I feel old when I push the keys on my typewriter
but I continue.
I mistype and throw the white mess against the window.
It sways through the air for a little while
until it bothers me again.
I hit it once more, ‘get away from me words of nothingness!’
I yell in my brain.
The paper lands on the bed, next to her.
She pushes it off the mattress with her breath
and it falls down on the carpet.
My carpet smells.
It makes me as sick as its green color.
I drink some more coffee.
And some more.
After a while,
the light of the two working bulbs
are joined by the sun.
They mumble in the background
as I continue to write.
I mistype again and beat another paper to death.
I send it through the air with great force,
watch it crash against the light blue cloth of her jeans.
My nipples start to freeze
and I realize that I am not wearing a shirt.
I drink some more coffee.
One of the books on my shelf falls down,
almost wakes her.
The door gets jealous and tries on its own.
I sneeze and the white walls shake.
A pain grabs my left rib
and I lean down on my cold radiator.
The blank white page is staring at me,
screaming for color.

Mattias Ostblom