Why are you acting as rabbit
when you could howl like a wolf?
You’re always hiding. Always regressing.
Never really going anywhere.

You channel these thoughts, yes. You manifest them. On a page.
On a stage. Like a smiling circus clown,
like a trapeze artist, flying, stumbling
through the realm of obscurity. A forgotten juggle. A lost tape.
It does not matter.
Why?
Why do you do these things?

Why are you so scared?
They are not grand thoughts. They are not ideas
meant to change.
They are private insights. Jittery. A look into the eyes of  some scared soul.

Your poems are minutiae, insignificant details. They are
the trembling lip. They are the shaking hand. The confused daze.
They do not know who they are,
but they know that they are small.

You want to be a monolith, but you refuse to build,
you refuse to haul the black stones. You do not have the power.
You are a caricature. You are as scared as Paris,
as two-faced as Iscariot- you could kiss with passion.
You could rule with love. But you bow out. You take
responsibilities with you, and slink into the dirt you
arose from. You are clay. You are dust.


Why are you dust? You don’t have to be.
Why aren’t you angry- you should be roaring!
Why are you quiet- you should be singing, singing
with the cicadas- chirping with the birds,
howling with the wolves; you should join the tumult,
the uproar;
but you sit. You play with your toys like a petulant child
and scream when they break. That’s the only noise you ever make.


You could be a wolf. You don’t have to be the prey.