Like with the poem
We tell ourselves that flowers mean love
That trees mean life
That white means innocence.
And that sword over there, that means war
This house is a terrible prison run by men
The window is my soul
The yellow wallpaper is my madness.
The apple is knowledge
The birds are freedom
Black is evil or a victim
or evil pretending to be a victim.
And you'll trust me when I say
That all of this is true
A simile, a metaphor
A grand allegory of wicked mankind.
One book, 512 pages
Details the loss of paradise.
Another, 224 pages
Details the 'New Negro.'
All of it tells you
What you want to hear
Or maybe, a jarring, half-truth spilt
To make you scowl, grimace, and shudder.
Churning your emotions to its whims
It pulls you on threads of anger
Sorrow
Guilt.
Or maybe by your joy
Your pride
Your self-swallowing hurts hidden deep inside.
All of it mere strings to the puppeteer
Who weaves your puppet-dance
As you fly out of the pages
And into reality
To bring to life the creator's mind.
What a great puppet show!
The rallies, the riots, the mistempered words
Articulate on pages
But the ink of life smudges ugly.
All the words on all the pages
Are just flowers and trees and whites or blacks.
They're apples and birds and windows and swords.
But nothing but words to make you feel.
And you do.
Feel the strings pulling you
Working you like the overseer works his slave
Churning you with its pretty phrases.
For better or worse,
To end the world and begin anew.