THE EMPTY HOUSE

the morning sun cares not

who or what she drowns in her orange light

for each this spawns a thought

though never the same one, try as they might

a child bathes in the earliness of day

stroking a cat who purrs at the sweet attention

they smile, as they have no capacity to say,

to articulate sufficiently their intention

a poet struggles to keep the metre of his verse

a sloppy attempt to quickly express emotion

what prison he chose, what curse

to express, this way, his odd devotion

what he attemps to say, you see

is that there is much beauty in life

but there's as much of it in glee

as, controversially, there is in strife

someone once told him "chuck,

life is just a series of tragedies

with some highlights, if you're in luck"

he thought it one of the worst realities

someone else sang, in a sort of play:

"no one in the world ever gets what they want

and that is beautiful

everybody dies fustrated and sad

and that is beautiful"

and this made him cry, but in a good way?

let's go on a tangent here for a minute

when man is born he has no expectation

he knows only his room with nothing in it

and he is content, delighting in each sensation

as he grows he picks up on this and that rule

an empty room is not enough, he will learn

and the ones before him, of whom he is told at school

went about it in a certain way, so now it's his turn

he learns to see people in categories,

a rich and fascinating bunch - compressed

into a mosaic that fits the oldest stories

so some parts of him should be supressed

you see, it simply doesn't do

that his room is still empty

some cut their soles to fit the shoe

are you still with me?

good. at this point you may not understand

"what does the sun have to do with this metaphor"

and you're right, it doesn't seem on brand

because it isn't. i don't mean to be a bore

i do have a point, though it may be abstract

see, the sun is nice. as is the joy of a child

this is uncontroversial and generally a good fact

but there is sadness and loneliness in the wild

and those, generally, are not in the top ten

so why is a poem about beauty and sunrise

speaking of the dread and pain of men?

are we to delight in their desperate cries?

well, maybe look at this from another side

you are a man who can only live in an empty room - for sure -

the room you're born with and you don't exactly feel pride

about this because there's a mob outside crying for furniture

and your pretense is starting to slip and the rhythm

is running away from you as you hastily cling to anything,

anything that makes you feel alive after the schism

after you decorate your room and it falls apart because caged birds do not sing

this is getting out of hand a bit. what is she even saying?

how many layers of metaphor do you need to be crowned king pretencious?

How many days does a man need to spend praying

to know what a life without someone's contempt is?

So he will eventually turn away from the heavens and the sun

and he will start to worship the hatred and the emptiness

he will stop apologizing and he will think he's won

by losing and that with this comes happiness

And that's not healthy but you can see how he got there, don't you think?

and eventually he will start to see that an empty room isn't a void

that there's a window and a socket and a sink

that there's more to it than what sustains an android

There's more to love in life than a husband or a wife

and outside the window is a sunrise and a cat

you don't need more to cut an onion than a knife

and he can live a whole 80 years in his empty flat

Still there will be those dropping in with a mission

searching somewhere in this empty room to find his heart,

they'll ask if he won't buy a bed or television

and as much as he would like that, he knows they'd fall apart

And he can spend his whole life trying to decorate

or move out of his acursed room to die on the street

but what nobility is there in bearing the weight?

In this life no one awards you for destroying your feet

Rather, they expect the shoe to fit and if it can't

that's kind of on you, to be honest, for being born incorrectly

into a room that's pretty sad, truly, I'd rather sink in sand

I'd kill myself if I had your shitty feet, I'm telling you directly

before we end this, give me one more chance

I don't want you to fall into confusion even deeper

all this to say that without romance

the only kiss I'll have is from the reaper