When you peer between the white bars of your pen,
Swaying rhythmically until your wheels
Squeak, you see a blind white square across the space
They keep you in, which says outside.
Here, under you, it’s clammy, and the jail
They keep your toes in, sticky cloth, is clammy too.
Climb over! That’s the way. Drop softly
To what is named a floor. It’s boards and dust
And a pin named splinter: as you crawl it tries
To stick your tender knees, right through the cloth
They keep your fat in; cry softly then, so they won’t come,
And persevere towards that light square.
As you go towards it, it climbs higher and higher,
And when you bump the wall, it’s way up there.
The wall is mean, intractable, so use your head
To hit it with, a lot of times. But the wall doesn’t care.
If you’ll just stop awhile and blink your eyes
You’ll find a board to grab when you stand up
Named sill; a white ring hanging from it
You pull, and then let go. It shoots up with a shriek.
You nearly fall. But now, behold!
Here’s what they name the world.
You’ve seen the rug named grass when they let you out
For recreation, to be pushed round and round,
But now it’s blue with feathers they name clouds.
Air! You try to join it with your mighty breath
But this new maddening wall named glass is in the way.
You blur it with your steam. But wait, don’t cry!
There’s a new game here: Hold tight with one fat paw
And with the other, draw.
Keep breathing on the pane to make designs.
They melt, but you make more as sky moves on.
Later they will give you oily sticks named crayons
For making big designs on these hard walls
That won’t erase so easily, no matter how they scrub,
And colored sticks and colored goo from mother’s bathroom
That won’t come off at all. So from now on,
You can make art, and words. That will be your revenge
For the white-barred cage, the pastel jail, the cruel walls.
Its name is freedom. To reach it, there’s no guide but you.
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