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More love hours than can ever be repaid

A lifeless life of love and hugs

Laid off from a thankless job

And discarded before retirement age. Corpses crucified against a canvas of their own comrades, strung up in funny poses Immortalized for not being good enough. 

Or perhaps too loved?

More love hours than can ever be repaid

Saviors from sleepless nights,

Pasted here, thank you, my hero. 

Plaques to lives unknown

Each a mystery sewn in bright green yarn,

Countless, unimaginable dreams captured in black button eyes. 

Speechless for they could never say enough about their lives before. 

Or maybe a gathering of the lost

Once named, once homed, anonymous

Stuck here in time and space,

Never to return to their mourning homes 

Those rejected sit among them,

Promising they meant as much to someone as the heroes did.

Trash picked through by loving eyes,

And given purpose again,

Prisoners of war in a cable knit cell.

More love hours than can ever be repaid

Lives of love, handmade, undone,

Watched by thousands. Framed by maize. 

Tallulah Klein is a sophomore majoring in 3D/VFX at SVA. This poem is named after the piece of the same name by Mike Kelley, which has much emotional significance to her. It is inspired by his own interpretation of Kelley's piece, connecting it to childhoods, giving lives and love to prized possessions, what it means to reflect on the past, and perceived want/need.