It’s a pretty big country, my mind
And there is much of it I haven’t yet explored
Rural villages and favelas
Places of hard-working love and teeming life
Broad, windy planes
Hidden, green-draped canyons . . .
And the government there
I only recently started to question,
Started to say,
What are these voices
That preside over my moments,
Even my most private ones?
That judge my intimacy, and my observations
My emotions, and my patterns
That block my paths with traffic lights
And put barbed wire around my lovely meadows?
Who elected them? Who gave consent?
Who ratified the constitution granting them control?
Not me.
Not the strong rivers of my body
Not the steady winds of my intentions
Not the oceans of my love
Or the strong, protective trees that feed my heart.
They are an enclave here
Installed by the country of Other
A consulate of sorts,
But it has no citizens within my border
No one needing their protection.
And there are no dwellers
In the home country of Other
(It is, for everyone, where others live —
No one has actually been there)
So, with no true souls to represent,
The consulate of Other
Has set itself as ruler in my mind.
But it has no right to reign,
It doesn’t own me
No law has set it here
And I abolish
The diplomatic ties it claimed to have.
I own my country
And I don’t need those Other rules,
Those fences, all those ugly barbs
That hemmed me in, that choked my vital movement.
I hereby free myself with this decree:
The consulate of Other is not me.
©Wendy Mulhern
April 12, 2013
