They painted over a mural.

Sure, it was bad
In the way that a kindergarten drawing is bad
The artist's heart is free from the weights of expectations
And what a remarkable thing to stay weightless for so long

Our expectations are filthy, putrid worms
Engulfing us from our scalps to our backs
They whisper in our ear, telling us we need them
You wouldn't want to be bad, would you?

The grass was actually alive, the skies were bluer than blue
And an otherwise ordinary castle was ordained by a scarlet dragon
Certainly an archetype, a cliche
Because cynicism need not enter the young artist's heart

A heart is not fit for a school.

The wall will be painted over in white
Neither pure nor bright
An off-white already stained
By the grime from grazing students' hands

Perhaps the wall will be repainted
A new story can be told
But that is only a white lie I tell myself
They didn't repaint the last mural

It will be an empty canvas
Longing to be filled with an expression of a soul
But destined to remain blank
To remind us that we are trapped in a facility

That our hearts are not free.