Taxed

What is the standard deduction?
Cut taken by the unseen for it's
Own use?

Could it be that if I measure,
If I take a tally of my total
I can pay a little less?

But what is less than this?
If there is a price to pay
I can.

But it might kill me.

II
Let me ask the question
First.
Let me question your math,
Your reason and your words.

Perhaps I pay to much?
Could the price be placed beyond
My reach?

You might pretend that it is not,
That it is fine to demand soul
For labor.

You can tell me that you work
So hard,
That you need the money to make
My life better.

Chances are I won't believe you.
Why should I?
I am paying a price in tears and blood
And empty nights.

You might say your work is hard,
That you have put yourself
In dangers way.
Who hasn't?
To love is to put yourself in dangers way,
And where I have not loved I've died.

Still, it may be this death is better.
If the world is cold and gray, like a grave
In winter, at least there is no
Fear of greater failure.

The dark I see comming is welcome
I have no need to escape it.
Color and light and all the joy of
Life is long gone.

Why not die now?
It is as good a time as any.
There is nothing special about
That moment when one dies.

Nothing unique to set it off.
The world walks on,
Usually won't even notice the absence.
Like a whole in a cave, it hardly matters,
What is a little more darkness?

III
Here in the tomb it is comfortable.
A small dark hole,
Like your bed when the storm
Is raging outside.

It is safe, you cannot be hurt more
Because who could possibly kill
A dead man?

It is so easy to live in grayscale.
There is no need to destiguish
Between colors.
No one says, "I don't understand!"
It is all so clear and so simple.

I wish it didn't hurt so bad to
Live here, to see the world through
Uncolored lenzes.

IV
What about the other side?
The freedom of flight in sky blue
Wind?

Is it freedom when you know you could fall,
And never rise again.
Is the hawk free, with a legion of
Crows on its tail.

Broken and bleading he fights to gain
Air. To escape, to be free.

He will be free, eventually.
When his bloody carcass
Hits the lightless soil.