THE CLOSET MYSTIC

to labor over a poem,

or to splatter it:

ink on a page.

to tell your reader of liberation,

to twirl freely

on life’s dance floor,

to open the cage

they’ve freely stepped into and locked—

while you labor

over such wishes of merriment,

while you struggle

to say what you plainly feel,

to tell yourself no, over and over—

this is encouraging medicine

using poison as its ingredients,

writing

like an expert on freedom

from the inside of a cell.