Self-Birth

you say I was born
and offer stamped paper as proof
you say
I suckled
and show me
black and white ruse

I say,
stolen identity

I say
I clawed my way fisting dirt
sprang up!
wild as a mustang in heat
shook my withers
blossomed and branched
under a slanderous moon

you say
you gave me speech
and learned my legs
to walk
taught manners in blended mahogany
and offered God
through a twisted spy glass
stained in blood wine

I say,
my heart speaks a language
you've never known,
unshackled from your nouns
untethered of your verbs
and my feet, MY FEET!
how they long to dance
through emblazoned wildflowers
you cropped with your murray
in laughable tradition

I have a manner my own
learned through
the beauty of a pain
I earned
free from your polish

and the God you chain in font
and story
I've set free
upon the green waves
and within
the tempestuous wind
where my heart soars
free, to pitch a tent,
temple enough for my gratitude

You say
I was born
you say I must die
in orderly fashion of rite

I say
I am not
what you say

from a seed
I sprouted
expanded
bloomed
but the seed has gone

and I am wild and free
as the Lazy Susan,
the shivering pine,
the drunken honey bee
and the wind that knows October

and your papers
of notary stamps
red letters
and Kodak gloss
can not take credit
for my birth

these,
which have bound
us each,
cast to yesterday's wind
and run with me, please
wild and free