i want to write about you
but i think it might be too soon

i am stopped on the cracked cement
next to a small but necessary park
in the middle of it all

there are hundreds of thousands of windows
shut tightly to keep the cool air in

the only chickens for miles
are being served up on plates
between college roommates
and lovers who find the city
more romantic than any
vague resemblance of a kiss
exchanged quickly on a narrow step
  
but still, i carry around my wicker basket
packed with old egg cartons
and carefully folded tea towels

i memorize the feeling of tired eyes that won’t look away
of how warm it is inside my bedroom with the door closed
tracing your outline in the dark

until the soft orange light of morning
paints every shadowy corner

until i have found myself feral
deep in a dark blue thicket
somewhere between you and the trees

trapped
in solitary confinement -

with the key to the exit
in your reach -

with nowhere to go
and no one to meet -

with nothing to do,
besides watching seconds,
evolve into minutes,
evolve into hours,
evolve into days.

would you leave?

- v.m

And like that
my voice has been stolen away
Anxiety barricades like invisible steel walls
Trapped, I’m left banging with clenched fists
A prisoner within my own head
My brain a chemically imbalanced warden
My mind in solitary confinement

The prisoners do not speak
Their jumpsuits scream in orange
Help me
The color so flamboyant

The guards do not speak
Their uniforms scold in blue
No talking
The colors are true

The warden does not speak
His prison mumbles in gray
Suicide
But the colors have already died

Our hands shaped like cages.
Cages shaped in the deformities of our hands.

Stoic fingers as rusty girdles,
Grainy textures as the bare calluses of our hands.

Trap.
Grasshoppers.
Trap.
The Sun.
Trap.
Our lovers hearts.
Within it’s moral confines.

Casually unlearn the truth that
confinement leaves it absent of light,
rid of it’s senescent glow,
dead to grow.

Our hands shaped like cages.
Cages shaped in the deformities of our hands.

You are standing
on a great, grassy
field as far as your eyes
can see. The ground
is firm, there is a peaceful
wind in the air
gently rustling your hair.
This is not what you expected.
You had anticipated
explosions, yelling,
a thud on the wall
that sounds like someone's
skull is being hit by
the house phone!
But no,
the field is
the serene place,
the confinement
that is childhood.
It is an illusion.
It never existed.

We confine ourselves
To the love we believe we deserve

Give a man a room
With a bed and an endless kitchen
And a door and a window
And he will live in the room
He may go outside often
But he will always come back
And maybe
In time
He'll bring back new things
And he'll add to the room

Take away the door
And he might stay in for months
Before he can't take it anymore
And climbs out the window
Never to return

Take away
The window and then door
And the man
Failing to break through the walls
Will either
Tear up the room with graffiti and flames
Or
Resign himself to a corner for weeks

Either way, he will destroy himself
If he has not way out

So it only makes sense
To give the man
A windows and a door
And to have a little faith in him
As he meets the world

There was a bird that grew up caged
It didn't know it should be enraged
It had seen other birds fly
Thought to it's self "they are going to die"
For from what it had lived and witnessed
It thought they must have a sickness
To make them fly
Way up there in the sky
In it's cage it was quite content
Never knowing what for, it's wings where ment
So it thought the other birds where more than bent

Are you like that little bird
Thinking that flying is quiet absurd
Are you locked in a cage of your own design
Content to live your life so confined
Take a closer look and open up your mind