I'm in a crowd and yet I'm all alone
I'm lost in love and far away from home
I'm lost in fear
I'm lost in tears
I'm in a crowd
I'm in a cloud
My tears are falling rain above the tones
The music plays its words into my ear
The words are there, but I refuse to hear
The words are there
The words are here
The music plays
The music stays
And words of love run deep within my tears
The things they say to me I can not do
The love they bring is better felt from you
The love they bring
The love they take
The things they say
The days they prey
My tears come down in red and green and blue
I'm red because I'm greener through the years
I'm blue because my life is still a grey
I'm red and green
I'm blue and grey
My jealousy
My empty days
They never seem to go away
And all I see is every day
The crowd will stay
The music plays
The things they say
My shade of grey
They say these are the best of all my years
But now I spend them singing in my tears.
PUBLICATION: Vortex, mid-June 1995, East High School
HISTORY: The Monkees had a hand in this one, with at least two
lines ("I'm in a crowd and yet I'm all alone," "My shade of grey")
referring to songs from their "Headquarters" album.
The colors are widely accepted symbols of certain feelings. Red
is love and/or embarassment, green is jealousy of those with
dates and social circles, blue is depression, and grey is that
in-between state of confusion.
"The love they bring" refers to love from blood relatives,
but it's being "better felt from you" refers to a desire to feel
a love that exists independent of family ties, a love that is given by choice instead of by obligation.
The last two lines say it all: Are these really, as the cliche
goes, "the best years of my life"? If so, I shouldn't be
feeling this badly.
I'm pleased with how this poem turned out, but when read in the same publication with "I Cry", it makes me look like
sort of a crybaby. Oh well.
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