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Gray

While you know that most men seem unflawed from without
Though obscured through the inundate rain
You continue to feel all the question and doubt
That compels you to scrub your own stain

Though the window through which you perceive such a scene
Keeps you safe, so it seems, by the breach
Still the rain that you see is your self-imposed screen
Which allows you to hide out of reach

Were it washed of its filth to allow you the day
You would find that your fear was for naught
Were the thousands of voices proved right in their say
You would learn the sheer fault of your thought!

But the chains that here weigh on those atrophied arms
Are too burdensome now but to lift
So your plan to steer fate against all kinds of harms
Remains idle from fears of the shift

In its stead it is hope that reverses this fear
Overwrought as you feel from your way
That the stalemate life of a floundering queer
Would pierce through the still nebulous gray
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