If you aren't looking
you will never see them
hidden in whitewashed caste systems
forced to conform
to federal papers
which fit in a folder
that fits in a file
of an emaciated white guy
who doesn't fit anywhere
checking the boxes and "disorders"
voted on by
a majority of uncaught criminals
who are protecting store front lifestyles
while the real merchandise of their lives
lays in the back storage room
with the rats of their conscience.
They judge sanity
setting rigid walls
and hanging permanent badges on
Salvador Dali dream catchers,
borderless thinkers,
and geniuses
of the things not yet discovered.
Just because the gifted can not
or will not
stop thinking,
they are detained for their
Difference.

State Hospital No. 3
titles every page
framed in frayed edges
and unfrayed passion.
Lions of courage stand
with childlike joy
in traveling circuses
obliterating demons of oppression,
overwhelming reoccurring ECT...ECT...ECT.
An etcetera of living
beyond electroconvulsive therapy
where the spelling of ECTLECTRC is perfect
in its grammar and definition,
standing in banners atop
the wide-eyed portraited guardians
of institutionalism.

Glorious art shuddered on a curb,
lost and intended for *******...

Thank God, beauty beholders come
in all ages of eyes.
14 year olds also find treasure
in garbage piles
clutching dearly to the feeling
that greatness lies in colored pencils
dancing on unusual stationary.
Edward Deeds
comes of age
in the same moment
as the scavenging boy does
opening the binders
on their inter-joined journey
36 annuals after dislodging it
from a leftover ham and rye.

A voice is unmuted
merely by being seen.
Revelation is given
by turning on the light.
Art, music and knowledge is infinite
when boxes are destroyed,
ignorance rebuked,
and courage is embraced.

Let us dare to never be
just what we know.
Let us live to be
what we have never yet seen.