I, the mad genius,

quiet in person,

loud in my mind

with fantastic ideas flowing

of places I’ve never been,

could never be.

Quiet afternoons spent

in a pastel doll house,

climbing hand-carved stairs

to decorative living rooms

where fragile bookcases stand

with little wooden books

whose red felt covers

are tattered and worn.

And on a desk

in that artificial existence,

I live in a castle

beneath the deep water

of a ten gallon fish tank;

Swimming with fat orange fish,

pushing pebbles

across the algae infested bottom,

playing with air bubbles,

then swimming fast

to avoid the filter.

Or flying out

through the absent glass

of an open window,

into the daylight