The Window to My Soul

         I look out of my grime encrusted window, in my small little room, colored gray from the passing of time.  The room that was once my sanctuary has now become my prison.  It was once full of color and enjoyment yet is now only gray.  I can see no other color but that. 
         As I look out of the small window, I see and hear the laughter and happiness of the people below.  I was once one of those bright and cheery people.  I was once full of happiness and laughter as well.  Now, all I feel is emptiness.  I am numb to the joys of life and only alive to the sorrows left to me.  I am as gray as my cold little room. 
         What makes the people below so much different than me?  A lack of pain? A blindness to sorrow?  Is it a genetic condition? A horrible mutation?  Or is it simpler than that?  A simple willingness to forget the pain and focus on the pleasure of life perhaps?
         In that regard, I am completely different from those smiling, happy, colorful people as I could be.  My heart has become cold and black and I am unwilling to look for the positive. Maybe I am just lazy, but I have found a comfort, a security in my little room where I can not be hurt again. I think of all of the pain that each and every one of the people outside will go through within the course of their lives.  That, in its self makes me want to burst into tears for them.  I have also heard that joy overrides pain, but I refuse to go through it again for myself.  I am willing to sacrifice the pleasure to avoid the pain.  Is that so wrong? 
         Perhaps one day I will change, but for now, sitting in this gray room, feeling the sorrow overwhelm me, I know that I will not.  I can not handle more pain in my life.