In the Room
by Sebastian De Marte, Christian College Geelong
Finalist, Years 9 – 10, written poetry
The people make the room, staring
Down at the dinner table, draining
Expression from their hollow gazes, drowning
In the room they flooded with false laughter.
Night unfurled like a headache, striking
Dully behind their eyes, crushing
Good intentions into silent curses…
Their mouths moved, but no sound escaped.
I remember as if I were still trapped with them;
I choked inhaling the dust on their breaths,
I could scarcely swallow each lump of food,
And when I coughed words from my clogged throat,
Nothing I said was anything I meant.
The parched and yellow light smothered me,
As I feigned calm, it bewildered me,
But wrestling my thoughts into order, I tried nonetheless
To make some conversation with the others.
Yet at every moment, with my mind fogged and eyes beleaguered
By the heavy, painful haze, I seemed to see their faces twist,
As if a nightmare had engulfed the world:
All their masks, so polite, melted into taunting leers,
And their words, which slid so smoothly, so silkily from their mouths,
Hid barbs that stung bitterly when they burrowed in my brain—
But a moment later, when I dared to look again, they seemed normal,
Their words all tasted as blandly affable as ever,
So I was left shaken, wondering if perhaps I had dreamt it all…
But later, when I caught sight of my own face in a mirror,
I felt once more that vague, strangling pain, as I saw myself
Locked inside a mask just like theirs, blank and strange.
But my eyes were afraid, and I knew I was afraid,
Because I could not reconcile their masks with the rictuses behind them.
And I felt foolish, because I had never before realised that a person
Could have more than one face, I had never understood
That no-one understands each other, I had never known
How impossible it is to know another human being.
Then I fled from that room, all alone, in the dark,
For I could not bear to face myself in the agony of facing them,
So I have never seen them since, and nor will I ever again,
I have run so far away, and finally I am safe…
But sometimes I suspect I am no happier for my solitude.
In any case, now there is no-one else in this room.
I am no longer stuck at the table, and yet I am still haunted
By that same dull ache that overwhelmed me back then.
Truly, there is nothing at all left within this room,
Here within this dusty void, in fact, I am not even here myself.
I have become an empty shell, an absence of a person,
Which is all I can ever be in the absence of everyone else,
Without their words, and their faces, mirrors in which I see myself.
Therefore I do not exist, except in the mists of my own memory,
So I spend my days poring sadly over the memory of that night:
That single lifelike night, when I wore a mask and was trapped at a table,
And all I ever think is that
A life alone is wasted, wondering
Whether then or now was better, sighing
At all the time that passes, hoping
That someday I will see them again.
Want to read more poems? Explore the other Years 9 – 10 finalists.