A House With No Color - Dustin Vado

A house with no color
    haunted by a wandering shadow that
can't find a good seat,
    was once filled with laughter
but now only crows
    pecking for answers
as to why they are a murder.

They carry me,
    sometimes.

When I had no feet and had to borrow wings

when I had no jaw and had to borrow a beak

when I had no gun and had to borrow claws

when I had no heart, and they said it didn't matter.

They carried me to their
    house with no color, and dropped me
in front of a shadow that
    looked like my father.

He looked disappointed without even
    needing a face to show it.
He could have been mistaken
    for sunshine in the golden afternoon,
pale sepia cutting through the
    dust kicked up by pecking questions.

There is no compromise for children
    as these crows eat the young daily.

The murder has lined up
    to deliver the sentence
of a silhouette.

But I was here to ask why
    slick black feathers have
to be a murder,
    and not a flying pride,
or a mischievous herd,
    or a cunning pack.

I awaited an answer for hours
    while decades of fallen skin quilted
into my own sewing a patchwork of our follies
    so decadent, it anchors the stomach
and breaks me through the foundation
    of unpainted cement
down to a dungeon,
    the shadow's home office.

I can hear the soundtrack of crows
    rain on me from above...

There was no desk, no paper, no pens, no books,
    no chair,
        and no color,

just me and emptiness, and I realized
    there were no crows around to hear the answer.