Others

Living on the mandate of others

Is basically Life imprisonment

Yet we all bear through it

All Smiles through a gritted teeth.

A rite of passage of course

To come unscathed through the other side

Full of sudden wisdom and cryptic cynicism

Silently afraid to cut these choking umbilical chords

Nourishment and community and all

Convincing ourselves this is what it is

To Be Human,

Taking the place of the Others

Who won and lost

Losing our wonder

And wondering what we lost-

The essence of being ourselves

The hyenas feed on our soul

Only when it is exposed

Keep it intact tightly within you

Guard it like a watchdog

Fundamental rights and all.

Worship it like a temple and

Pray you don’t lose yourself

For the call of others

Whatever may be the cost.

Me the living

Me – the living

Writing for myself

Of rivers and sunset

Don’t have to worry about my skill set

Or how the lines don’t mesh

with what people expect.

No likes , no comments , no shares

No feedback to feed my ego back

No more second hand living

It might actually be thrilling

To discover why I really write

All over again

Writing for an audience since tenth grade

Reader is my default

Writing not.

Somewhere along the way

Eyeballs glazed my edge

Was always a cat on the fence

Now filled with trepidation to jump in any direction

I offer platitudes and bromides

In shiny gleaming proses

Posing as something else

Content should always trump form

But then reality always bites on the backside

I can close my eyes and write a poem now

No challenge anymore

I need to push myself outside these boundaries

Do something different

Or something simple

Don’t care about the fancy words I use

Or the number of lines which might bore or please you

I NEED to write for myself and for that

This is the First Step.