They would rather you shackle your expression
ask for permission to narrate our own yesterdays
As if lungs excuse themselves for breathing
You too see how the critics have attempted
With every metric and measure to bound
these stanzas Into barbed envelopes
Into lexicon coffins…. of standards
accosting the fruit beneath my words
(They are the birds)
that purchase steel beams,
and spend their days
Building cages for their bodies
Tarring their wings
praying we join their labor
hoping their misery
finds an acquaintance