these white-washed walls

that cage us in

all I can wonder is

will they wash me away as well?

will they rinse me of my colors

of what makes me myself

will they mask

what waits ahead of us

and destroy

what lies behind us?

will we ever glimpse

beyond these sky-high

blockades

these white-washed walls 

that cage us in?

it is here we are taught

to obey, to memorize

but not to learn

they shape us like clay

into perfect clones

absent of color

in the way we dress

the way we think

the way we learn

the way we

live

and the color of our world

slowly fades to gray

an impenetrable haze

easy to manipulate

we dance like puppets

with strings firmly attached

we live only with the hope

that one day

these white-washed walls

will crumble and fall

that our strings will snap 

and we can shape ourselves

our own lives

because right now,

behind these white-washed walls,

these lives they tease us with

mock us with 

they don't belong to us