MySelf Again

The tree in that sickening pot
could have grown tall like the baobab

on the side of the mountain, but you carved it,

and forced it to the size you want.

Every day you whittle him and tell yourself

how lucky, tiny tree, to have a pot to grow in.

And you bound its feet, crippled its brain,

muddled its hands and dwarfed its growth.

It is our nature to grow.

One day, when you wake from your dreamland

you no longer can cup my constant image in your eyes.

There will be a grave attention in your eyes

and without words you’ll survey me and my world.

There the dim past and the present will mingle

in an opened-mouth amazement.

In all tenderness, truth and untruths will struggle;

and you no longer will keep me like chattel slaves,

cramped in roach infected shacks of your inner senses..

Your sickening pot would be gone;

my growth would be mine.