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