Looseleaf Paper vol.1

You are an egg.

You are an egg.

Not the whitest egg

Or the smoothest egg

But you try your best for an egg.

You hatch later than the other eggs

As a young and wild little chick

Covered in dark, downy fluff,

And given stubby little legs.

You run all over the walls,

Fly up and out of the henhouse,

Well, try to fly out of the henhouse;

You get put in a cage with a wire ceiling.

You want to go higher, you know you can

But the elder chicks don't let that happen.

They play mean tricks on you

That get you into trouble.

No one believes anything you say

Because you're just a hyper runt.

Even as you get older,

No one wants to listen.

No one takes you seriously,

So why not make them laugh?

They laugh and laugh and laugh,

But you don't realize they're not laughing with you.

You know what you want to do;

You want to create happiness,

And so you bake and sew and draw and paint

Little works of art for the others.

After so much making and giving,

They still don't see you as on their level.

You've grown into quite the plump Araucana

By not letting any rejected sweets go to waste.

But you keep doing it.

Why do you keep creating

If your creations don't make any sort of difference?

You try to practice flying off the henhouse one last time.

Oh, look. That Cochin rooster wants your attention.

"Maybe you should get off the roof,"

You thought, all those years ago.

You're no longer an egg, but you have eggs of your own

(2017)