Lines & Lies

i.
I’ve heard rules are made
to be broken
and it’s true, ‘cause
their only purpose is to keep us in line
and a universe made of lines

is
per
fect
ly
flat.

Let me decide what the rules are
or better yet,
have none at all.
No lines.

A universe

per
fect
ly

blank.

ii.
There’s a certain beauty
in nothing, in whiteness,
in paper without a stroke
of ink.
Nothing is perfect.
Something
can never come close.

‘Course, there’s no such thing
as nothing.

iii.
I live in complications.
My rules twist and tangle with each other,
twining into
roads I stumble down
barefoot, shoes in hand—
parallel lines that always meet
in the distance.
Why do I try to pin it down,
catch my writhing world
between my palms, within my head?
It’s too big to hold.

iv.
Nothing takes up no space at all.

v.
No wonder I retreat to the
safety
(the safety?)
of the world I set up for myself,
the one where what I think
is the law, so huge,
so certain—
and constantly changing;
that familiar universe

tinted the shade of my
color-shifting eyes.

vi.
Believing a lie
is what makes it true.