Before they had even admitted

that no body should be enslaved

the philosophers knew that freedom

would be our problem, always.

 

This isn’t just for the head: I mean

the freedom also of your hands,

to trust them as they write, destroy, caress;

to know that they are yours.

 

Because we can only be free here in this world,

but it is this world which denies that we are free.

 

This isn’t just denial: this is the way the world is.

I mean, I see my body—which I despise—in its

universe of bodies, and I would like to

withdraw into my safest refuge, thinking and

dreaming, to never act again.

 

Because it’s when we act, quickening our thoughts,

that our freedom flees my sight.

 

The pristine cradle of our sleep,

the pristine cage of a fantasy, and a dream,

I dare to think this is something

sometimes we all need.

 

Instead we’re given fat and skin

and nerves and veins and blood and bone

and muscles, which end in hands,

and who do they obey?

 

It’s worse than being imprisoned,

it’s to be the “free man” and not yourself.

 

Because the greatest philosopher knew—

that unremarkable body with the thoughts

of transcending, and their precise reports

about its blessings and its proper costs—

he knew that if we’re made to act,

we’re less than what we need to be.

Good is what we need to be.

 

Free is what we must be.

And myself is all I want to be.

 

But automaty is concrete—

but autonomy is undeniable—

and so I look at the world from the window of my eyes

and it scares me, not because it’s evil,

or because its distant stars and

jungles of signs and bodies are

even indifferent—but because it loves me.

The world has made me,

but only for me to make myself, and

even in my prism frame, philosophy,

I have only landscaped for a garden.

Who taught my tongue its words?

Who, after all, still invites me with that kiss

to speak and say for tomorrow and each day,

I love you, I love you all—?