I may be a puppet without strings but at least I am a freedom puppet detached from your influence. No longer will I write for you and watch you take the credit. My pen is my own now

You think that because I am motionless that this invalidates my life

This is not true

You offer me your suspension, your gift you say

It is worthless only a hangman would offer such a gift

I know that if I accepted that you would take great delight in pulling the lever and would collect the witness of my eternity without thought

I will not let you have this pleasure

You have left me on this dusty road warning me that the first vehicle that passes will crush my fragile body

You would not let that happen as the ink of my pen would also be crushed and you would drown as quickly as I was destroyed

You cradle me and have told me that you have burnt our strings of attachment

I do not believe you

You say that you feel the beauty that impacts your eye

That is a lie

You only see this beauty

You do not feel it as I do

That is your jealousy

You could destroy me without thought but you will not

The flames are false

They do not fool me

They only warm us both as night closes

You promise me the history dust as we look at the stars which appear like prisoners in the sky

You describe their freedom and my imprisonment

I suffer no imprisonment

You are the confined one

Leave now, I will be here when you return.

You will not travel far

An empty engine craves fuel

And you have none

You may shine and collect many in your reflection but you are as empty as I am motionless

Let us both stay here

On the opposite sides of this road

And watch each other

With increasing suspicion

As you age and I grow more derelict

In time we will both return to dust and what will it matter to anybody that only the freedom birds would have nested with our neglected strings

 

 

SMO 1999