"Art is born of humiliation."
-- W.H. Auden

Art is the second self.
The first lies battered
by humiliation and rejection,
by wanton disregard
of the human.
The first self carries few ways
to defend itself. Power
begets power; strength
begets strength. But they
last only for a day, dying
into empty possibilities
in the night.
The will grows weary.

Art builds an eternal shield
from all malevolence, all
violence to the soul. Art
regenerates, capacitates,
reaches for the infinite.
It hammers out metaphor,
the bleeding heart of poetry.
It fashions a second skin,
thick with pride of accomplishment,
thick with the afterglow
of creativity. The second skin
clothes a second self, safe
from insult and harm..

The second self climbs to
celestial heights. It soars
above the earth, laughing
in new-found freedom.