BREAKOUT

with thanks to Jonathan, to Jewel, to Alain

again
I’m watching this world 
unfold itself too fast for me

I'm watching the world 
become a hard hand
quickly deciding to offer 
a rapid series of slaps

rattling my cage

yes, now that I think of it: 
a cage

I want one to crawl into, and
perhaps it could have

a) water bowl
b) blanket
c) coherent, defensible world-view

oh yeah I want that
but I know 
I shall promptly upset my bowl, shred my blankie, and cower away from good sense

right about the time I realize I am without tools
and without tool kit
and without empty pockets, even

then
I shall hunker down and feed myself 
on a discarded heap of my own heart muscle
wrapped, as it is, around empty space

I shall crouch and feed
until I am fed
right up

I will not turn over
or circle inside my bars 
or scratch at my floor
until I have wrathfully, savagely eaten my nothingness heart out,
fully completely irreversibly

until I am quite sick on it
stuffed with my nothing heart
and in too deep
all the way in, in well over my head

then
remembering that it’s the wild beasts who get put into cages,
my wild blood, made homeless by my heart-eating,
will finally boil

and it will be time to rattle and roar
from within my without

and my howl
shall not cease
until you all break out
before me

come on
come on
come on

jail break

show me how it’s done