Non-Alterity September 24, 2016

I am not your negro

I am not your other

I am not your shadow

I am not what you dream of

but never see in the flesh,

turn to catch and fail,
like catching the darkness
which your own presence creates.

I am an I am.

I faced the sun and freed myself
from that plantation of yours long ago.

I am not that presence that haunts your skin,

dark shadows hunting like a muscular amoral wolf.

That hungry feral hound that licks your neck when you sleep

but refuses your leash is not me.

I know that

I am of sun
I am of spider
I am of monkey
I am of crow and porcupine.

But you,

you have defined yourself

by fashioning the steel and dark iron

you hold right now in your hands -- for me!

But really, only you feel its weight, the guilt of your own intentions.

I am light and it can't hold me.

I am,
but not yours to kill.