What would happen if you put a hummingbird

into a small box with no way out?

No escape.

That tiny little bird would

Smash and bruise itself

As it flew again and again

into the walls of that box.

A hummingbird doesn’t belong in a box.

Neither do you.

How many people are put into boxes from childhood?

Who they should be. How they should be.

When to speak. When not to speak.

How to love. Who to love.

How to act.

Who to be.

And, for the rest of their lives,

They try to escape from those boxes.

Often damaging themselves

And others.

When all they want

Is to be free to be

Who they really are.

You are a caged tiger,

Growling at your imprisonment.

Then, a sudden revelation

Bursts open cage doors.

“There is no reason

To be bound up and jailed!”

In a fury you smash

The rules made of clay,

The putrid taste of prison dissolved

Bitter like dandelion or

Unsweetened cocoa on your tongue.

Pieces of clay,

Smashed, die,

You’ve awakened.

In open field

You run like a child

You are a particle of dust.

Weightless.

Like a sailboat,

One with the sea.

Unbounded.

The dust becomes light

Blinds you.

Sharp, but no pain.

Astonishing!

Light previously unknown

Now pummels your eyes,

Which are opened for the first time.

Fear seizes on what once was,

Then self dissolves, evaporated. . .

Now calm.

No caged tiger now.

You are dust

You are flight

You are wind.

They cut back the trees this morning.

They call it “pruning.”

Now, the trees are bare.

In angry frustration

I care for you.

One moment love,

Then love’s subdued.

The bare trees

Don’t cry like me

When like a wood chipper

You grind my branches —

Cut me back

I yell, complain,

Unlike trees.

Torn, the flesh

Of emotional strife.

The comings and goings

Of hope, then loss.

You ravage my branches.

Wood chipped away.

I’m bare.

The trees are bare

And pissed on.