A Student's Trouble

Everywhere I turn there is a wall
or maybe not
just an endless expanse
a salt flat
crags zig-zagging in all directions
towards a blank horizon
a compass in my pocket
dried out, and cracked
and rusted.
Useless.

A girl, perfect enough
800 miles away
and growing further.
She'll be a ghost soon,
graduating to the after-life.
I'll remain in this
primordial prison.

An empty pill-bottle on my bedside changes
from an almost neon orange
to a dull caramel
as the color outside
slides
from white to black
it hurts to blink, to think
boiling ink, writhing,
lashing always against its walls.

And the professors' voices
float by~~~~~
Sing with me:
"the syllabus is
the saddest book
that
I've ever read!"
Then the bugle plays
along with a laughing fugue
look at this:
harmony in dissonance.

That's enough.

My grandfather's face is still fresh
though in reality it is ash
I can see him
round and proud and
with a cap.