Through all this shit

I wonder how my eyes have stayed so blue

and didn't turn black from the poison of all I've seen.

But the skin around them

has been sculpted by the hand of pain

into a scowl that's dried hard

as stone on my face.

Looking into the mirror I think

this is the face of an angry, tired old man

with the eyes of a newborn, oblivious

to the suffering of this world.

If the old saying is right, that the eyes are really the window of the soul

then maybe that innocent blue is a child, staring out from his broken home

with dreams leaving

while his dad still beats his mom

in the back room of my mind.

But if only he knew

that once the alcohol has killed his father

and the therapy has cured his mother

he'd be able to step outside

to look up at an unimaginable sky

and make it jealous of the blue

that has been shut away for years

in his own darkness.