I put conkers on my door-frame, to keep spiders at bay,
I like my bedroom messy so I don't put things away.
I wish I had a pony, but I know I wouldn't drive it,
I wish I had a bumblebee, but I've no hive to hive it.

I'm a vegetarian but I've no views on rights of chickens,
I love to read the classics but I've no views on ****** Dickens,
I own a hundred thousand scarves but never would I wear one,
I'd envy those who have tattoos, but I would never bare one.

I light candles everyday but they make me cough,
I respect those that speak in Art and understood Van Gogh,
I drink coffee everyday, but never liked it very much,
I've never had a rabbit but I own a cage and hutch.

We all do little, crazy things that no one understands,
we lose control and lose ourselves and always change our plans.
The ones they think are crazy are the ones who cause the change,
whether you love or hate them, you always know their names.

So if you're building up an army , piece by piece by piece,
please remember normal friends, you need one oddball at least!

I

I have a good imagination
Nay I say I have a great one
Hell, I'd be willing to say it is splendiforous
Not a word?
I don't really give a **** because
With great imagination comes brand new words

A brand new vocabulary is merely one pro
Just a single benefit that
A great imagination can bestow
There are more but the first has got to be the words
With these brand new syllables and letters yet to be invented
One can weave a new language
A secret code in which to communicate
With the six foot, broadsword wielding fire-breathing ape
That you can call your imaginary friend

But with a great imagination, he is not imaginary
He is indeed real
He sits beside you in the dark
As the nightmare still clings to your brow
And he speaks
Just when you can no longer stand the silence
He will dance in front of your little eyes
Just so the dark no longer seems evil

And when you stand alone in a crowded yard
Because your name is linked to a fictitious disease
Thought up by lesser imaginations
You can still have a friend that tells you you matter
Yet with this scenario comes our first con
People with no understanding of a great imagination
People who do not love it as they should
They tell you that because your friend is not technically real
That you must surrender him
You must lose him and take new friends
Friends that must be better because they are flesh and blood
Even though, they rejected you for nothing more
Than the jealousy that lesser imaginations feel

And so you do
Because you are imaginative, not stupid
You know that to argue would mean yet another label
This time the disease you earn is all too real
You don't fight losing your coping mechanism
You will survive
I will
Because I have a great imagination

II

I have a great imagination
One might even call it amazing
I would call it unstoppable
Because even when it takes heavy blow
It still goes on

It takes the loss of that imaginary friend
And it redirects
Barreling forward like a wayward locomotive
It promises you that you will still be ok
And you believe your imagination because the lies it tells
Are the kind you are willing to believe in the name of sanity

You get older
Keep the most fanciful of your imagination hidden
Because you've grown tired of the couch
That piece of hardened leather
Worn fabric situated under fluorescent lights
Lights, your imagination says, are there to push it away
The way the suited people speak
You know its right

But you need to let this imagination loose
You must have the release that it craves for you
This is the second pro
It can give you direction
You focus it
Control it
Weave it into magnificent fictions where the oddball can win
Or destroy the world, whichever your imagination prefers
You feel you have your true calling
This is the sign you need that you are destined
For more than ridicule
In the world of pages and ink, your imagination is free

The big con is
It is free and unbothered
As long as you keep it out of sight
The wolves who have been waiting to tear you assunder
Those false docs waiting to proclaim you mad
The enemies of imagination
They will look at the spoils of your toiling and tear into it
Every piece of fiction conceived that does not sit right is wrong
They say it is the result of the imagination's slow sister, The Subconscious

That very real disease that once threatened you returns
Its teeth barred
You stare into its thrashing jaws
The fear you feel is unlike anything you have before
But you tell yourself you will survive
You must
I must
Because I have a great imagination

III

I have a great imagination
It is wonderful
And it is maddening
Not mad at the angry screaming
But more of the psychotic laughing used to cover up the crying

The final con this imagination has is fear
As you move on from the lesser imaginations
And ignore those searching for hidden meanings in your scribbles
You start to rely more on your imagination
It hasn't led you astray and its lies are always beneficial
So you listen to it

Yet it stews in your skull
You don't engage it and it grows bored
So it comes up with new ways to terrify you
Just so it can amuse itself
It gives you pictures of the end and the blackness beyond
You see the faces of your mourners
You try to imagine life without you
And life in lifelessness

You hear about a superbug that masquerades
The deadly wolf in the ill sheep's clothes
The images of your imagination kick in and every cough
Every sniffle
Every slight wrong feeling in your gut and you crave Hazmat gear

You realize that you are not the protagonist of your own story
You are not the hero
You are not the plucky princess or the charming rogue
You are able to die at a moment's notice and are unsure of what awaits you
Heaven, Valhalla, blackness or lingering
You don't know and you aren't ready to find out

But in this con comes the final pro
Hope
When you are down , your imagination comes in to console you
Just like the ape from your childhood
It switches the visions
It stows the ones that terrify you for the moment
You now can picture yourself as a success

Your imagination paying off
Your dreams coming true
You picture that moment when you naysay the naysayers
They will come and beg forgiveness
Apologize
Everything looks bright

I can feel the wind in my face
And I have the courage to finally jump
I spread my arms like wings
And I soar
Closing my eyes to the wind
I don't care if I'm falling

Because I know
In the deepest pit of my heart
That I am actually flying
Because I have a great imagination

Lonely warring me
With rose-tinted testicles
Ever the oddball

© Robert Porteus