I’m longing for release. I’m wanting to explode! I’ve no way to leave this abode!
“It doesn’t matter, it isn’t real. Don’t forget that in your escapist’s zeal.”
I can feel it! I’m almost there! There’s electricity in each and every hair!
“What do you feel? Where would you go?”
Are you sure that you really want to know?
“Tell me, friend.”

I want to spread out –to explore! I cannot stand this confined space anymore!
Beyond the walls, the echoed calls, the muck and mire that causes all our stalls.
“But, friend . . .”

No! You asked, and I speak! Let me rise above the peak!
Let me climb and let me soar! Everything below is such a bore.
Can you feel the conflagration of my desire? As it burns, it only takes us higher.
It illuminates the night! I am a shooting star in flight!
I’ve been silenced and you do squander. This I will take no longer!

You call me friend
“—I am!”
Then free me! Can’t you see that your gaze but tease me?
“You look from within . . .”
And you rot from without! I smell it like a long dead trout!
“Silence! You cannot even speak!”
Your every utterance is just a leak.

“And what do you feel if not me? What do you see that is not mine?
I give you everything! I am your spine!
You wish to soar but without me you are no more.
We are in this together. Through it all we must weather.
Through complexities that vex, through alkohol and sex.
Through the visions of the night and the fear of sudden sight.”

You animal!

“You criminal!”

I give you gifts.

“You’d let me go?”