Rumpus

I am not an innocent flower.
I have never been.
My audition for that part
Left me stuffed in a box of pain with a lid that refused to close completely.
A limb hanging out here or there: dangling -
And I did my best to shave them or chop them off so that I would fit inside that carton of shame
And yet...

[bleeding]

When I released myself not so many years in the past I felt enormous pain:

The pain of oxygen entering the lungs of a newborn for the first time...

And sometimes that oxygen still makes me weep,
Makes me scream,
Makes me long for the enclosure that kept me wrapped up like a mummified corpse without water,
Without whiskey,
Without wild sex that included all the holes in my body,

Without pansexuality
or politics
or supporting my friend who just had an abortion -

No.

I will not re-enter the box for you.

For anyone.

You can look askance and wish you could go back in time to something "pure",
But I will continue to be wild
And I will continue to dance with sweat lining the stretch marks on my stomach;

I will eat chocolate covered almonds
And attend films by my lonesome
And drink an entire pot of coffee
And shake down the street in my Anxiety
And I will pack my pills in a plastic baggie to toss in the backpack I drop at the door to my lover's apartment.

I will embrace my dog and my children and my instruments and my poetry and my career building resume reel that I paid extra for on Actors Access.

I burned the fucking box.

And you cannot contain me.