The cage


The cage

He’s watching me

 the gorilla

 lying on his side

 eyes open wide

he’s still

too still

Languid and indolent

 his long strong arm moves

  to itch the occasional itch

 I hear him crying inside

  despair has taken hold of his body

 wrapping itself around his majesty

 like a cage of thorns

 an inner cage

 to contain the flood of impotent rage

 which if released

would crash through the sweet chambers of his being

 and carry him away in pieces

 

All of his instinct and strength bottled

 to quench the thirst for visitor selfies

 A click

our ten second itch

and he’s captured all over again

 saved in digital memory for some notional future

to shore up the panic

of our dislocation

 from nature

 

There’s a howl in me

 my creature heart rattles in its cage

 pounding the bars

crying out

 NO

not in my name

  not for me

On either side of the cage we are both inmates

victims of a terrible deceit

a lie which tells me that I am noble and free

 whilst he is beast and captive

Yet we are bound he and I – bound together

for we have both been told that we are too much

too wild

too fierce

too sensitive

  too much of bloody everything

 too alive

 we need to tone down

calm down

chill out

 go with the flow

 

I imagine him taking me in his arms

 and holding my head against his beautiful black chest

  just holding me there

  because I sense he knows what I barely dare to admit

 that my heart is breaking

 every day my light seems dimmer

 and the way out further away

Against his chest I would remember

 that we are not the mad ones

 not too much of anything

  we are the great souls

 in a world which cannot see the cage