PostPoems Be Artistic. Be Creative. Be Inspired!

despite all my rage
I’m still just a rat in a cage…

There was something strangely appealing about the anarchy in the streets after the Raptors won
(despite the fear of fireworks landing in my hair or the risk of drunk traffic-light-climbers falling on me).

a unique chance to observe this side of humanity, not governed by any hierarchy for just a few brief hours.

maybe, in some parallel universe, I am with them, setting fires and breaking every rule.
instead this rage is turned inwards, self-inflicted pain as penance for not belonging.

not for not knowing how to play, but for not WANTING to.

a client’s father told a story that he prefaced with “I have to tell you about something disgusting.”
“I was holding hands with my son.  A man came up to us – he thought we were “Gays”!”

I dug my nails into hands under the table.  I nodded politely and redirected
him back to the behaviour plan we were trying to create.

shock, very quickly turned to shame, which very quickly dissolved into self-hate.
no, I won’t set the world on fire, I won’t climb traffic lights.  I’d rather
remove myself from the equation. maybe he’s right, after all.
maybe the world needs anarchists and activists. not philosophers.
(especially not trauma-ridden-queer-female-philosophers who can’t pick a side)

No. I am not needed here.  I am just part of the cage, what is the point of existing if it’s to bang myself against these bars in constant frustration?  (I wonder where the rat would go if it were free).

It’s selfish, I keep telling myself.
To want a baby.  Why bring another person into a suffering world?
why subject anyone else to the cage?
Yet I am choosing it any way, so I’ve decided to hate myself for the selfishness,
again, as penance? As if that somehow relieves me of
responsibility?

No.  It’s all madness, and I’m the one who’s putting extra locks on the cage, keeping myself in,
keeping myself – safe? – comfortable.  asleep.

I miss
The Scarlet Tanager so much.
I miss it like I would miss a lover who I wasn’t sure
I’d ever see again.
That brilliant red.  That glistening black eye.  The striking black wing.
And the Bunting! I miss him, too.  I waited
more than a decade                     to see that brilliant blue
and there he was, suddenly, in my backyard, day after day,
until the day he wasn’t.

I want to live                every. Day.
as if I were dying tomorrow.

Is that my way out of this trap?