An Ode to Mess

Clothes strewn on the floor
Barricading the shut door
Mysteries of a cluttered space
Hidden behind its clean shaven face.

I may tell you my favorite hiding spots
But you'll never see where I hide my thoughts.
Behind this door are the cluttered secrets I keep
In this mess there's peace when I weep.

The fruit may rot and the coffee may crust
The hair may clot and the razor may rust
But here I reign, in this land of anarchy,
Where insects only crawl at my mercy.

Here I am neither devil nor saint.
Here I am together brave and faint.
Here I rot and I flourish.
Here I strip down and embellish.

The scent of me that I wash away
To fit into the world's gaze
Lingers in the carpets and sheets
That I wear again before I sleep.

When the air rushes in, it's safe behind this door
When it's time to leave, it filters its core.
So lovers may come and lovers may go
But what's truly inside they may never know.

So many todays have lived and died
In this room to stay alive.
The mess is my present and my past
It lingers till the clouds are cast.

When the rain knocks the windows for change
And the stains inside start to feel strange
I let the lightning strike its fire
And rise up from the cleansing pyre.

Outside, the world spins madly on
We synchronise to its splintered sound.
Inside this room of disarray
The world sheds its burlesque ways.

I must protect this fragile chaos
That shades my joy and my pathos.
And while outside is clean and bright
Inside, this darkness must stay alight.

From this pure dripping melting pot
I emerge clean from all the rot.
This room that I carefully close behind me
Protects the ugly freedom inside me.

John C. Hutchins
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