Warden

Originally posted April 05, 2024.

Photo by ActionVance on Unsplash

We're all prisoners of gravity.
That edge-of-purview mastermind
who's been pulling your strings
of dopamine and depression triggers,
making sure you straggle listlessly
penny pinching for hope through life
for that one day to be the one, isn't
the blood-deprived demon oligarchical 
in sadism, the karma-starved angel
monopolistic in granting unsolicited
lessons, the wisdom-austere unknown
stereotypical in probing information.
But the force of constitution enshrined
in the facts of physics that sends us
crashing down flatfooted to a future
so repetitive that it should be called 
history, each time we attempt to divorce
ourselves from the surface of the earth, 
swim in spring breezes in a commune 
of dandelion wisps or follow cardinals
towards smokestack stilted clouds
consolidating eyes away from the day.
Free. Just be free. Gravity will remain 
our warden even after the number
largest and deepest within us expires
and we're subsumed into the alkaline 
mother for the bacteria and maggots
to humble us. Ignite the dynamite stick 
of your soul since you're never alone 
at the landfill of crystal lamentations,
an alter of tragedy we call our planet, 
because gravity remains your warden.
As long as you're at peace languishing
on the wrong side of freedom's ultimatum. 

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