A Bubble Above Reality Poem by Margaret Alice Second

Can’t live in black and white – I’ve tried
and failed, fixed up the room with silver
the only intruding colour, impossible to
live this way, had to add pink, can’t live
in blue and white also, regardless of all

Delft porcelain loveliness I need yellow
to bring in the light, wanted to describe
the why, wherefore and what-for to my-
self but my mind is scrambled by some
mysterious food allergy – could be the

noodles with cheese yesterday, it was
the illegal treat I sneaked into Sunday
and today lights in my head are going
mad flickering on and off, every now &
then I touch the earth and feel reality

as real - just to lose it and float about
anchorless, rudderless; a psychopath
in the making, my sensitive eardrums
stopped from driving me crazy by inter-
spersing music between me and my

chatting colleagues: point is, not one
feeling is left, all ideas are gone, and
this is how I felt growing up - only by
living in a bubble above reality could
life be lived; and here I’m falling into

the same pit BUT without the fear of
no return which used to haunt me in
the long ago, today I’m content to be
a budding psychopath, dreaming of
the day when consciousness will be

freed from the authoritarian control
of my allergic system messing up
life with too much adrenaline…