He went to study and I walked on, accompanied by the bright click of my old worn heels. Brighter than my mood. I am weighed down by my faults, the bird around my neck. Can you see it? You don't see me... The impatient flickering of a thousand artificial suns light up the night in harsh relief- a chiaro scuro world, skewed. Electricity permeates the very air; it croons to me, so I tune my humming to its droning B. Once the constant buzz drove me mad, but now I find it reassuring, our man made universe's private cosmic symphony. You don't hear it, do you? Some people forget how to listen. I switch perspectives and watched the colors backwards, the world like a film negative. The trees reach out in angry red, so I change to black and white. The gray proves too distracting, so I repaint one last time, the world now in shades of sickly orange. Leave my judgment to the sky. The dying light of the stars is mourned by the pendulum moon. Venus turns a baleful eye on my wandering footsteps. There are tears here somewhere. A willow commiserates with me, but she is innocent and I reek of sin. A moth floats past, recognizing a kindred spirit. Pale sick flowers crowd the bushes like maggots. The walls are oozing blood, thick and scarlet and pungent, and I am frightened because the world has begun to rot, and I am the only one who sees. Perhaps it sours just for me--but you cannot tell, because others fear what they don't understand, send it far away alone so that they can rest easy, undisturbed by waking nightmares of the lost. I do not tell, because it is mine, intensely so. Dragon like, I guard my secrets. I cobble it all together, your world and mine, the beautiful and the scary and the tactile and the visionary, send it spinning. You may not recognize it, but I love my kaleidoscope world.