I leapt
to freedom
but I missed
my footing
and I landed
on earth
with a bump
no freedom there
with all that
enslavement
exploitation
and addiction
not much chance
of the people, me
being one of them
now,
exercising their
free-will apart
from the occasional
fuck off or
maybe, now and then
cutting free, only
to come crashing
back to the reality
of mostly not having
been born into money
or privilege, or in
some cases,
not even a roof
over their heads
or a scrap to eat,
too busy fighting
over who should steal
the land from who
now
or whether their god was
bigger or better than
their neighbour’s god,
never getting an answer,
or if they become
rich and famous
they end-up killing
themselves and everyone
around them with their
misery and their angst
and guilt at no longer
being at the bottom of
the heap, because
they begin to remember
all the other strivers,
duckers and divers,
they pushed out of the way
or trampled-on in order
to get to the top of whatever
little dunghill they had
clambered to climb,
only now realising
that the grass is
always greener on
the other side, including
the grass they left behind
when they built their
fence to keep those
others out and as far
away from them as they
could manage, and now,
they wonder why no-one
will talk to them anymore
but it’s also true that
most people don’t ‘make it’
unless they learn to create
something out of materials
or paint or clay or music
or drama or words or
cooking or all the other
ways in which these little
humans make themselves
happy and somewhat
fulfilled, and when I
finally realised that this
was the way, some
decades after arriving
here on this little rock,
in this little universe,
only then did I know
what to do, and
how to do it, and so
I leapt
to freedom
at last.
Fraser
August 2023