A Seat at the Table

16 November 2025

https://poems.culturing.net/2025/11/a-seat-at-the-table/

At the end of a long day, in the spaces between
all the versions of me, I find solace in asking
where I went wrong, and which pieces remain
to be put back together in new configurations,
respecting their origins but never again as they were.
It's a crime to be free, too free, and to dishonor
life and love with a cruelty not even animals know.
Only we can make lust a religion, and power its handmaiden.
Thus in the spirit of chivalry let me remind you:
aim higher, and dream better dreams than those found
in pornography. You are still human after all,
and as such have dominion over part of your conscious dreams.
But do not be afraid. You already know how
to climb out of this hole, to escape from the prison
of immaturity, and only you know, because no two paths
are the same. So your way may go through desert places
or haunted ruins, or even to the brink of hell,
but you'll come back to tell about all that was learned
and how thrilled and how empty you felt, all at once.
In that emptiness plant this seed: you are human,
the point that connects law and nature, the goal
of all fathers and the hope of all mothers, and in you
live thousands of generations. Take part in this.
Freedom has earned you a seat at the table.
It never had any other purpose.