what poem can i write to set myself free? i can write angry my friends will surreptitiously tell me they are angry too i can write sad, create space for others to weep, no longer alone, sad or i can make noises and joy and lightness we all lean back in our chairs flying for that moment, until we have to inhale i have discovered fellow travelers, i have not travelled. which words summon the warrior goddess wielding beauty and power who can actually take me somewhere? why is it always i sacrifice i invoke i bleed i find myself dancing in her arms she in mine i lean in close enough to feel her breath it dawns, i have my arms, again around death's delicate waist even this lament names her conjures tumbles towards the rapture and surrender to nothingness existence becomes gravity drawing in in all three dimensions to a horrifying shape that consumes anyone who sees it the second law of thermodynamics silently singing the universe to sleep a fifth dimension is needed. an axis along which i can travel gain the perspective that eludes me probably not another poem about a star that weeps, surely not the scent of a tear, definitely not a salt crystal of memory that becomes a blade. inside out underwear sex with furniture rude tuxedo rodeos gerbil apocalypse stabby the page with a bloody knife songing sonnets to waffle irons name your daughter ahab scream at the impotence of your fracking useless fracking poem impassable recedes impossible unfolds at a place which does not acknowledge height, width, or depth your self dancing in the arms of death, but now known also as moving in rhythm with all that is alive