Knowing in the Gift-Wrap

I keep my soul close like letters in the floor wrapped with rubber bands

But now I reach inside myself and with my can opener fingers

chink chink chink the lid is off and  my essence pours out everywhere,

out of me out of my mouth dripping from the ends of my limbs

leaving a path for others to follow me to where I do not know (no one knows for sure)

it’s a gigantic mystery clue board game only with no squares�"too limiting

only curtains waving side to side saying come and see,

come and peek behind come and be yourself with others

I’m not afraid of myself I’m afraid of what I could let myself become, moldering.

but now it trips, my soul, down the steps in a hurry for the door and flings behind all of those ridiculous inhibitions like dead leaves blowing.

 

I act.

Act on behalf of the human condition

my clothes peel away until I am wrapped in only my skin

bare on the stage the wooden floor curving beneath my feet.

My beauty is too much to bear so I ignore it

and link it to your beauty and yours and yours and yours.

Everyone’s just as beautiful as me.

Homespun corn-husk dresses on main street come and see my rustled proud earthy beauty swishing sashaying down the brick road.

My hips tilt like a see-saw you see the front of me

you saw the back of me gift-wrapped in nature’s castoffs my arms spread wide with six sheets spread to the wind behind me.

 

I’ll rock the boat out on the sea and won’t stop even if you scream at me.

When we capsize then you’ll thank me for that refreshing water of life

I dumped you out into,

the sea of desire and dreams and the fear and doubt

pushed all the way to the bottom the dregs of the cup of the ocean where no one will see or hear of them again.

What is fear but a reluctance to attempt the new and possibly impossible?

I will clamp my teeth onto it this vicious electric eel called fear

and never let go until the air has gone out of the tires I’ll patch them up like a quilt and sign each one with my name…

All four names, flourished into a tattoo of extraordinary proportions covering

Every spare inch of skin

so everyone can read my story and graft the idea onto their own  bodies

So many bodies each tight against the other trying to find their way.

Which way do we go? Is there a right or wrong in this fork in the road?

 

I smile and say no. The only wrong is if you’re not open to anything un-ordinary.

I’m cracked open, I’m an egg with my yolk showing.

My dreams float by in the night and greet me warmed blanketed in the morning.

I sleepwalk all the time these days, even with my lover by my side

Watching and shushing and calming me

And my self-consumption my terrible subconscious making facts up

That aren’t real can’t be real won’t be real to terrify my mind

What if they are real? What then? What is so terrible that I can’t face,

Being the magnificent individual with power

I have yet to tap, the possibilities are endless. I can taste the rainbow

With my tongue, my longing. The skittles of my imagination

Avalanching down this slope.

Put your arms around me tight so I won’t slip away

Naked in my midnight raving the moon the witness to my expunged madness…

 

I am mad. Everyone of us is mad. We should all be mad.

How else to survive in this great mad world?

Have a sense of humor, don’t let the tragedies written in the ground

The walls the sky the cities the countries the news

Kill your our my spirit, but sing at the top of our (yours and mine)

Sore and beat and weary and hoarse and off-tune and in-tune lungs

About whatever we want

Howling into the air that vibrates with the energy of souls that

Refuse to be kept captive by chain-link electric fences of

Tradition and normalcy and expectation.

 

Skating on Lake Michigan in the winter with only a scarf and long-johns,

Figure-eights of infinity symbols confirming my

Will to live and live and live, cutting the edge of my self-same soul

Into an imperfect design that is perfect for its flawed beauty.

It is what it is what it is what it will be.

I will be. Myself and no one else and so will

You.