Strangely deranged [11]

What the hell was he thinking?
Did he assume for one ache-filled moment
that this glowing concrete world
would welcome him with open arms?
Was he blind and deaf in his belief
that his particular genre of scum
is allowed in their diamond palaces?
What a stupendous idea.
What a misguided fool he is.
This isn't a life that can accommodate him.
His words are too vitreous.
His appearance too jarring.
His dreams too humble.
They do not rise
to the towering glory that is expected of men in this land.
He is more like the weed that grows amongst their lush green gardens.
Allowed to survive
as long as he remains blissfully out of sight.
As long as his existence
doesn't become an inconvenience to their perfect lives.

What did he imagine?
Life would be as simple as it had always been?
That his kind would be found freely walking these hallowed halls?
If so, he truly is the King of Fools.
For in this world, he is expected to be like the rest.
It is demanded that he fall in line
or step way from it.
There is no room here for the stray branch.
No space for minds as bent as his own.
Their eyes do not see what he wishes they would.
Their ideas do not fit together.
Their thoughts will always clash.
It would be better if he just surrendered to their ways.
Survival here means clipping his wings.
Or forgetting he ever had them.
Living here is defined by the quality of livelihood.
By the means he can provide,
not the ideas he can birth.

He really is the fool they make him out to be.
For intruding on their idyllic lives.
For having his own views of life.
For falling in love.
He should never have done that.
He should have kept his ruined heart to himself.
He should never have dared to reach out to one
from this perfectly pruned world.
He risks destroying her now.
The one he loves.
The one who stops all his thoughts.
But then again,
she is what he was thinking of in the first place.