Censored
Excuse me, did you just tell me to write “Anything, but…”?
Did you just imply
That I have unlimited creative license---as long as I conform?
Anything means EVERYTHING
No except fors, not includings, or buts
Anything means boundless
And YOU think you can attach some hallow, sucked-dry conditions to your everythings?
OK---
Let me try this.
I’ll sit at my desk, pen in hand, posed and ready to strike
Just like
An alley cat about to pounce
On some unsuspecting mucus-soaked-flea-ridden-sewer rat
Ready to write your anything
I’ll turn my eyes to the window
Open to allow the floral saturated breezes
Impregnated with springtime potpourri
To penetrate my nostrils
I’ll look upon the honey soaked garden
Dripping in ripeness, openly accepting the hungry tendrils of sun
Prostituting itself to the lights of the season
My thirsty flesh will imbibe the wisdom of the stratified clouds
Sweet and slick nectar from ancient gods of Greece
And my softly dream kissed lips
Will begin a silent chant of “anything”
My anything—a mantra flying swiftly on the wings of robins
Diving, soaring, alongside angry beaks
Slicing through the muffled breezes
As smoothly as the heated blade
Through the neck of the sacrificial lamb
Yes, I have in my hand
Pulsing and throbbing ink
Waiting to explode from my pen
A fountain raining anything
Yet, as the passion and tension entice each other
In a lusty tango of possibility
I hear the star-crossed echo
But
Anything but
And the light leaves before I blink
And the window slams closed, in mockery of a gunshot
And in the stifling regenerated air
That suffocates and chokes
I find myself clawing like a crazed hydrophobic-grizzly
At the dirt-stained panes of glad
Through which I see nothing.
Erin M. Dixon
