My words are borrowed,
From the tongues of those
Who stole our freedom.

Yet now I use them,
For my expression
In the name of —

Liberation.

you will thrive in your own cocoon—
legless arthropod wriggling out
of its leaved shell, crunching
on the stem of a marigold’s shrivel.
you crawl up the leaves like they’re
the steps of a winding staircase,
circling and circling to one day
step out of your cocoon.

you are your own skin—
a wing ripped in figure
eights of formative tearing.
at the bottom of a
wind-leaned green tower,
you are torn down as if starting all
over again, away from the pace of
a hundred other caterpillar’d creatures.

you are not quite a monarch butterfly,
not yet the zebra-patterned black and white,
but you bloom in the form of a familiar marigold, a daisy’d curve—
thriving as a flower, swaying and alive.
you must visit the filial leaves and trace
their veins gently.

soon you will thrive in your own cocoon;
as those plant’d seeds will
soon leave legless arthropods wriggling—
for how would a caterpillar’s cocoon wither
without your leaves crinkling beneath it?

Store me in a foreign wooden house,
but please
let me out.
Daylight seething through skin
and bones I don't have.
Rain wiping hand-painted
stage pearl-white smiles.

Make me walk
and then run on my own
without strings holding up
my wrists and calves.
I hope by then a mile
knocks the wind out of my lungs
and while I pause for breath,
lay rest, look up
may it remind
me of the crown I wear,
the color of the sky.

Tear up scripts
made for me to recite,
and let me write
all the stories
I'd rather hear,
not just act out
with my time.

I'm not cut out for a role
I never auditioned for
or this life.

he
for whom
total abstinence or extreme indulgence
six of one, half a dozen of the other.....
sempiternally steeped in perfect equanimity,
effulgent as the primal flare
my crescent bearing jewel
who’s pure as jasmine

© 2019

Save your self
from your suffering
by seeking liberation and relief
through philosophy.

in a fitting finale
i summon
the vanquisher of death
to end
this interminable cycle of transmigration

the ask....

a taste of ambrosia
stealthily hidden
in the tranquil crevice
between
a potpourri of thoughts

crescent bearing jewel
pure as jasmine
grant me
the nectar of immortality

©2019

My existence isn’t something
you test out your empathy on

My humanity is not something
that asks for your sympathy

My life and loves and lived experiences
are liberated from your thin,
watery approval

Your opinion holds no bearing in my body.