​

Handing back the chains of your reductive ideologies

I say no to binary choices

 

Abandoning those barely concealed inducements

masquerading like the emperor’s new clothes

all dressed in froth and fancy

I seek a different story

​

Beyond pre-packaged definitions

and ribbon wrapped parcels of confinement

you can keep your freshly painted corral,

I am no lost filly for your breaking.

I thank you,

but refuse your kind offer of another bridle

to sport for your entertainment

its shiny trick of the light dressing of trinkets and baubles, 

no longer hold interest for me,

they are already discarded in tomorrow’s trash

When I have the bit between my teeth,

it will be to run for my own pleasure,

not your amusement

 

Dodging your myriad hooks,

designed to keep me ever hungry

I will glide past as graceful as a practiced gondolier

as I watch those previously captured shoals learn to swim in cooler waters

I will quietly celebrate your slow demise

So don’t be fooled by my occasional acquiescence,

my moments of seeming compliance

I am simply bidding my time . . .

 

For I see you . . . 

your attempts at squeezing and pressing

I am no blood orange for your juicing, no pigeon for your plucking

I hand back the chains or your small stories

and demand a different tale

 

Its time to leave behind those posturing maquettes,

jostling for attention on today’s stage

those clamouring voices, pulling at our clothes and tearing of our flesh

and ask

which chains do you dare cut?