He hides it well
he's at pains to hide it
so precise
with his jacket and umbrella
trying to look like the others

He thinks no one knows it
thinks he's hidden himself so far away
no one can find him

And he may be right
but what a waste
like a caterpillar refusing to become
a butterfly

"I think he's Walter Mitty"
Barbara says
Barbara is old
and good at playing dumb
and innocent
but she knows
age has its advantages
you get the long view

Youth sees only surfaces
"He's such a geek"
"so boring"
"you've got to be kidding, you want him?"
a grey dull man
is all the girl sees
it's all he means people to see

He's afraid
afraid that if he says
what he thinks
or feels
or if he does
what he wants
or if the other grey men
knew he was not really grey
he would be left apart
alone rejected

So he lives alone
and speaks of grey general things
the weather
his hobbies
his work
and dresses like the other
grey men
and keeps himself
to himself
as alone as if he were
rejected
but
no one has to know

And in his mind
he lives his dreams
of adventure
and
pretty women
and
travel
and escape
from a blue grey life

He dreams
of friends who really know him
and like him
anyway
and dreams of things
that are far away
when his grey mood strikes

I know
I am grey too
with all my colors on the inside
where they don't show

"I think he isn't used to getting
what he wants"
he wants to be Don Juan
and a poet
and a drifter
he wants to be a son-of-a-bitch
angry
fierce
desperate

He wants to fly far away
from home
and family
and work
and duty

He wants to kill someone
and run away

"I think he's afraid of getting what he wants"

He makes a point
of being kind
to people
being polite
always the gentleman
opening doors
giving money to beggars
because he feels nothing
no compassion
no intimate friendship
he is terrified that his soul
may be grey too
that it feels nothing

Like the Tin Man
in search of his heart
he stands in a forest of strangers
rusting slowly
and wanting to feel
but afraid his soul is lost

But it isn't lost
it's only hiding
behind the dull blue grey face
that hides
the other grey men
and women
like me
who dream
and are not what they seem.