The Cage

He’s watching me, the gorilla. Resting on his side. Eyes open wide. He’s still. Too still. Languid and indolent, his long strong arm moves to scratch the occasional itch.  His eyes look straight through me.  Embers of an original fire.  

Despair has taken hold of his body, wrapping itself around his majesty like a cage of thorns.  An inner cage to contain the flood of impotent rage, which if released would crash through the sweet chambers of his heart and carry him away, in pieces. All of his instinct and strength lie bottled. His sole purpose now, to quench the thirst for visitor selfies.  A click. Our ten second itch. And he’s captured all over again.  Saved in digital memory for some notional future, to shore up the panic of our dislocation from nature.

There’s a howl in me. My creature heart rattles in its cage.  Pounding the bars. Crying NO. Not in my name. Not for me. On both sides of the cage we are inmates. Victims of a terrible deceit. A lie which tells me that I am noble and free, whilst he is beast and captive. Yet we are bound he and I. Bound together. We have both been told that we are too much. Too fierce. Too wild. Too sensitive.  Too much of everything.  Too alive. We need to tone down. Chill out. Go with the flow.

I imagine him taking me in his arms and holding my head against his beautiful black chest. Just holding me there. I sense he knows what I barely dare to admit, that our hearts are breaking. Every day the light seems dimmer and the way back further away. Against his chest I would remember, that we are not the mad ones. Not too much of anything.

We are the great souls, in a world that cannot see the cage.