An old tale tells of a world where creativity and beauty is but a forgotten word.
Trees and birds are only stories that were quickly forgotten.
The people live in the same houses, and wear the same clothes.
There are no colours but black and white.
It is a world where creativity and beauty is dead... Save for one young boy.
With his gifted hands, he created.
Sculptors of strange and wonderful creatures and architectures one could only see in their wildest dreams.
Stories and tales that could make even the saddest clowns laugh and the coldest soldiers cry.
Pictures and murals that displayed the colours of the rainbows that had long since stopped shining.
Beautiful as his creations were, he was shunned by his family and friends.
They saw him as mentally disturbed because he created things that he cannot see. Written stories that he cannot hear.
Beautiful as his creations were, they were hastily discarded by the townspeople;
Thrown into a river that flows through town, into a chasm without a bottom.
Shunned by his kin and his creations discarded,
One day, the boy could take no more.
He fled from his house, indistinguishable from the other buildings around,
And he cast himself into the river, intending to join the tales and images his hand wove into existence.
Down with the raging water, and into the great darkness in the center of the earth. A darkness that even the grey sun could not illuminate.
Darkness holds mysteries, and this one is one that none knows.
None but the boy.
When he woke up, he found himself cradled in a woman's arms.
But this woman had a face of a goat. On her head is a strange piece of clothing called a hat, and her eyes were a beautiful crimson red.
She only had three fingers on her fluffy, snow white hands.
She was dressed in a soft robe that shines a wonderful violet from the glowing crystals around.
"The Great Creator," She spoke. "Why have you fallen down here, far below the grey world above?"
"The grey world is blind," said the boy. "Blind to how different, how grand, the world would be if there's colour and form just like ages past. I wished to join my creations in Oblivion."
"You are not in Oblivion, child," said the woman. "But you are where your creations reside. Look around."
The boy looks around the Underground. The land below the earth was not dead and desolate, but rather filled with life.
Lives like the goat woman.
A man with the lower body of a horse,
A faery who carries his head in his hand,
And a bird clad in a sightless mask, for its gaze could turn anyone to stone.
And they all sported such vibrant colours, wore such magnificent clothing and lived in strange-looking abodes.
All too beautiful for the boy to believe.
He looked around some more to see more familiar things. One of his sculptures, placed in the middle of a bed of mushrooms, turned into a shrine.
He listened to two bug children tell a story he wrote; a story that once brought a soldier to tears.
He saw scribbles on the buildings that looked like recreations of his own drawings, but they never came close to the grandness of the original.
All of them were credited to a being called 'The Great Creator from Above.'
"Those close to you may shun you, child," said the goat woman. "But someone, somewhere, loves you for who you are."
She smiles to him, a sight so warm the boy had to shed a tear.
"Don't change for them...
Stay as you are for us."
I'm not sure if this counts as poetry, but it is a story written in few words. A story to inspire to nurture your uniqueness. This one was written for a friend.
