Oh, happiness, you know, is such a mystery to me
For my sweet mind, so nubile, now tempted and teased
In daisy chains constrained, becomes unflaggingly naïve
Amidst hopeless, hungry caricatures of a fresh, degenerate breed---
It is these sad amalgamations of cynicism and greed
That beg so caustically for my poor pauper’s decree
Wholly, humbly, in morally hazardous beseech
Reminding me that I will never be exempt from this disease

Because a bird that has for all its life been caged
Would know not, in freedom’s grasp, just how it should behave
And I imagine, most ignorantly, would haplessly spend its days
Flying in circles above the cold cell in which it was once contained
For it is the fear within that forbids us from ever wandering astray
Not, as we convince ourselves, those despicably tangible restraints
But the prejudices and prospects upon which we were raised
The unforgiving pathways of a pre-determined fate

Well, I’d rather die simply, dreaming wistfully instead
Because even the corporeal hand of freedom is ghostly akin to lead
The poison in my veins that leaves me ****** and unfed
It can scarcely compare to the beauty I’ve concocted in my head
And ‘fate,’ I admit, is something that I’ve come to quite dread
To think my end is not my own makes me wish that I was dead
To be voiceless and choiceless and paralyzed in my bed
A story that was written and never to be read

My existence will never course on a single, narrow line
And there will be many, many beds in which my loyalties lie
The destination may well be as crooked as the path the arrow flies
And for all of this uncertainty, I most assuredly will be fine
Because mark my words; let doubt not linger in mind
These cages and these pages will be now and forever mine
Just an arbitrary reaction to the hand-me-down destiny I’ve defied
The parameters I have made to covet all the corners of my life