I'm guarded,
but these walls are glass:
thick like the acrylic in aquariums.
I can see through,
bang on the walls until my hands are red,
shout, but no sound ever leaves this fortress

instead I watch
as the people stare in at me;
hundreds of eyes watching me
causing my skin to crawl like insects are living beneath it

they precieve me but do not know me---
gawk and laugh and smudge the glass;
my vision to the outside becomes jaded--
blurry audience to my sideshow act---
there's something to be said about just exsisiting

I'm there with pretty patterns,
colors that scream dangerous to the natural world;
there is total lack of monochrome
bar the numerous stickers on my torso and limbs

and they stare at me appalled
while their children giggle and  point with wonder in their eyes
demanding to know what is that creature?
why it's so funny,
why it's so loud and bright and struggling to hide
when it's obviously something a wonder to be seen

they shush their children then--
saying don't look and not to point
while they raise their eyebrows in judgement and gossip to their friends later about what they saw that day
I have become a spectacle and in a way I did it to myself
trapped in the necessity of uniformity so long I started to ooze out of my clothes like sludge

it dripped into new shoes and formed someone new
I'm still learning to accept her vision in the glass when I look in the mirror
trying to find the awe of a child's eyes through the ones of an adult