A thousand cats roamed 'round the house
now since her children left.
She fed them all three times a day
and never would forget.
She liked having the company
while everyone was gone.
They were in every room and porch
and even in her lawn.
She sung to them and dressed them up
like little baby dolls,
and watched as tiny kittens
licked off milk from tiny paws.
She loved them more than anything
in the entire world.
At night, she would lay next to them
in a ball so tightly curled.

How I adore your nerve
when you kissed me in your closet upon sheets made of legos
and all of your childhood dreams.
How easy I am for you to draw when you play on stage the song that you wrote me,
The one that feels like rock climbing by the river,
Like naps in the summer when I drool on your chest and you don't mind,
Like kissing you until the very last minute of my curfew,
only to break it for the miracle that is your lips.
How alluring is your breath on my neck,
Your voice in my ear when you told me that you loved me
and you didn't stop smiling,
even as the years went by and I did.
How I craved, longed, begged for time to be still
the time you took me to the highest hill you could drive to,
You called it my mountain.
"At first, you look at it and it's so small,
but once you notice it, it's all you can see," you said.
How my stomach floods with waves of nostalgia and a taste
of everything I've ever had to live without,
With complete and utter spell-binded devotion at the simple familiarity
of your smell.
How addicted I am to your laugh when you're happy and
the mastered impression you do of your mom.
How weak I am to your intellect and your appreciation of literature
and real music,
Your enthusiasm for art and the "name that note" game you force upon me
as you stumble onto the classical radio station.
How in love I am with your romance that is as childish as my attachment
to my baby blankie and my mother's childhood walrus that you never ceased to insult.
Our pajama day that we decided over our prom,
When we turned on John Mayer and slow danced in your room.
Your idea of a date consisted of fake wine and me.
How incredibly warm are the coldest of nights,
On the side of your dirt road as we lie in the snow that is too cold for comfort,
yet holds us there with the fear that one day will not look the same as this one
and I would bear any amount of cold winter to keep one more moment of yours.
How I cherish the way you latch my pinky with yours when we walk
And the face you don't know you make when you play guitar.
The rooftop where you kissed me for the very first time and the string rings
we wore to remind each other we were still there.
How incredibly and unfortunately devout I am to all that I remember of you.

Today I picked up a pencil in a pathetic attempt to banish all the bad thoughts.
I wrote about you.
How we haven't been talking.

I wrote about my dad.
About how I don't want to hate him

I wrote about how I stopped getting high with my friends.
And how I should be focusing on important things

I wrote about how I stayed the night at my best friends house.
And how I took too much ambien and how it made me cry all night.

I meant to get all these thoughts out But now I'm swimming in them.

Ropes and chains
Twine and twigs
Every ounce of burden
Straining, straining
Step again, drag my feet
Too heavy, it's too heavy

Crumple like paper
Knees in the mud
Weight on my shoulders
Sinking, sinking

Shouts and screams
Fall deaf on my ear
All I've ever heard
Now as silence

Spit while I'm down
Useless, I'm useless
Selfish for want of freedom
I owe you this
You insist I owe you this

Slaves do not dream
Do not think on things
Other than the master's approval
This is what you've done
This is why I am

To serve, to serve
Faithful, without question
To validate your own life
That, you say is my purpose

I'm crawling
But you add more weight
Sinking, sinking
You tell me to stay
Trap me with your ropes and chains

I slip, you threaten
To cast me out
To wolves and beasts
And vicious criminals

To cast me out of these walls
You scream
To leave me to fend for myself
In an existence of terror

"No!" I beg, I try harder
"Please, strike again!"
I beg for the pain
The pain is love

The whip is love
The shouting is love
These walls, these chains,
Love and protection,
Protection

Tie me down
To a place of expectations
That are self serving
To a world of rules
Of certainty

I trusted you
I believed in you
Believed I was doing the right thing
Blinded by your ignorance
As you taught it to me

Trapped, trapped
I can't move
You taught me
To not want to

Those wolves,
I can hear them
Laughing behind you
Laughing is wicked
You taught me that

Laughter is delusion
Is cruel
This is real,
This is certain,
This is safe
That is what you said

I look to that laughter
In disgust
What is that garish brightness?
It must be one of their tricks,
One of their deceptions

"It is light,"
Someone calls from
Behind your wall of safety
What is light?
It must be bad

There is none here,
And things not here are not good
It must mean lies
Light must be
Deception

You hit again
For looking
I should not look
It will lead me astray
Please, let me stay I beg

But it haunts me
That curious light
I do not know what it is
You do not know what it is
I want to see

What is that light?
That star behind you
Do stars exist?
In what is that, air?

My eyes sneak past you
Past the door
You yell at me for looking
But you always yell
I don't hear
But I see
For the first time, I see

Is that green stuff on the ground?
Not mud, not unyielding stone
Something soft, something gentle
Do such things exist?

"Grass," the distant voice names
Grass… it is something
Can something so different be?
What does it do?
What is its purpose?
To serve?

"No, not to serve,"
Then what?
Why does it exist, if not to serve?
To serve…

You add more weight,
To remind me
Remind me,
Of my place

There is familiarity,
Familiarity in rock and stone
And pain
I could ask you to strike me

One more time
So I could feel the love
You taught me
That is what pain means

Grass is scary
Flowers are scary
Sun, wind, sea,
These pleasantries that are
Evil in your eyes

But they beckon to me

I shift in the mud
Of this home
Restless
Restlessness is new
Restlessness is dangerous

HALT! You do not want me
Looking that way
Halt, stay,
Obey, obey,
Head down
More weight

I don't think to question
But I look
I look to see
Something different

Something so soft,
Something so sweet
How does it taste?
How does it feel?

Like evil, you say
Like the destruction of certainty
And society
And all that makes us strong

I almost believe
You sound so sure
You taught me never to question
And for so long I knew it was right

But… that light…

I take step forward
You scream and snap your whips
Dishonor, dishonor

They are like hugs
As you have taught
Out of love
I open my mouth to ask
"Disrespect, Disrespect!"

Anger, fury
I am disobeying
I dare question,
This world you have built
Out of rules and ignorance

Another step,
The burden is slipping
Disappointment,
Disappointment

That light ahead
Feels good
Feels warm
Feels right

So strange that
There be happiness
Outside of certainty
Outside of law

"Stop stop!
I will cast you out
I will disown you
And you will never return!"

You shame me
With claims of hate
Of betrayal
I betrayed, I betrayed

Your orders
Are the orders
Of nature, you say
And I disobey them

"Betrayal, Betrayal"
But the 'wolves' say "Courage"
What is courage?
Courage is good? Or bad?

What do those smiles mean?
Can a face truly be that way?
How can this exist, if it is
Against nature

No,
It is against
Your nature
Something, something
Outside of your world
Exists

I am in awe
Fascination, imagination
There is color, there is life
All of these things I never knew

It draws me forward
This world outside of my own
Things I cannot name
Warmth and faith

"Betrayal, betrayal,"
But you
You dare not follow
You lock the gate behind me

"Never return,
Never return"
You growl,
You threaten
You turn your back on me
On one you claimed to love
Through slaps and whips

I am scared
Of not knowing
These soft colored
Blossoms

But you…
I realize,
I think,
For myself

You… you instead are afraid of knowing of them.
Your walls, I see now
I can see
Built with rules
Built with eyes closed
So you can feel safe

You protect yourself
You shut me out
I am contaminated
I am evil

I am not you,
Betrayal, Betrayal
I disappointed you
I am not welcome

There are fingers through my hand
There is softness in this touch
If pain means love, does this mean hate?
I don't understand

An embrace
This is soft
This is good
This light is the world

And to look back on yours
Yours is small, is closed, narrow
Cold and dense as stone
Unyielding, Unyielding

So small, so dark
"So safe"
You would argue
But I pity you

You feel strong
You command those beneath you
As little as they are
You feel safe

But I walk away
And see sky
See possibility
I feel fear, I feel uncertainty

But I feel freedom
I feel grass,
I feel light,
I feel love,

I feel life, I feel life.

Stumbling through this broken dream,
The colorblind artist finds a motif.
For once he wasn't wrong,
When he felt right.
He found more than a distraction from the black and white.

A lilly in the concrete,
To never expire.
I've got a brand new drug,
It's like I've never been higher.
A solitary blossom standing in the debris.
She's the only thing thats really perfect about me.

At this point I can't fall asleep.
It's never been the same,
Ever since you met me.
It's one a.m.
And I'm awake again.
When talking to you,
Sleep is such a waste of our time.
And whats worse,
Than wasting my time with you,
On this earth.
Of our time,
And whats worse?
Which is why we both decided to dive in head first.

A lilly in the concrete,
To never expire.
I've got a brand new drug,
It's like I've never been higher.
A solitary blossom standing in the debris.
She's the only thing thats really perfect about me.

He dropped to one knee,
like he'd done before.
The roots were unearthed,
As he pulled on the flower.
The lilly found a home,
In the palm of his hand,
And the colorblind artist saw beauty again.

It's not the thoughts in the car,
Toward the masquerade.
It's the girl at the concert,
Rubbing elbows with me.
It's not our self concious,
It's not my flaws.
It's how together we can tear all of the negatives down.
of our time.
And whats worse,
Than wasting my time with you,
On this earth.
Of our time,
And whats worse?
Which is why we both decided to dive in head first.

A lilly in the concrete,
To never expire.
I've got a brand new drug,
It's like I've never been higher.
A solitary blossom standing in the debris.
She's the only thing thats really perfect about me.

i have
no one
now.

Originality is dead
Everything that can be done
Has been done
And creativity is a joke
Because the words he writes
Have been said a hundred times in a hundred different ways
Better or worse, its the same
And that sameness is suffocating
For an individual is the highest from of life
And the mob has overwhelmed him
To the point where he can't see why
He should bother fighting for his life