Will to Freedom/Will to Power

I

Do not doubt my will to live,
do not ever doubt that the only thing
I have been condemned for
is being free
for I have been responsible
for everything I have done
since being thrown into this world.

So there is no fascist cell that can hold me,
no camp I can be forced into,
no barbed wire nor chain link fence
no guard tower nor panopticon
that can strip me of my authenticity,
because if they dare try to
turn their guns
towards the victors
and put us into train cars
they will fall just as easily as raindrops
on the City of Roses,
yield just as readily as the sandy banks of Ecola Creek do as the water greets the haystack,

and when they don’t,
when they can’t be cleaved by the knife that came from a rainbow,
they will come with me
in the search to discover what happens when you become less orderly,
what it means
to exist in hearts and minds alone,
to decide what to do with what’s been done to you,
for the will to live
is the will
for all of us
to be free.

II

Do not doubt my will to live
or my will to move heaven and earth,
the River and Elysium,
to package them up with a lock of my hair
into an uncountable number of gold lockets
To give to the people I love.

And do not doubt my will to give
them what they ask for,
my own uninterrupted future,
a long, long line that has not been
trimmed obscenely short
or thinned of its volume,
or bleached to transparency,
instead a strand of lusciousness,
long and rich and soft and smooth,
with some split ends and frays, of course,
it comes with the territory,
but a strand that can be enjoyed on its own.

And do not doubt my will to give
them what they ask for,
a glass of water down my throat,
a bagless expression in my eyes,
a presence,
a grounding,
a whole version of myself
in the center of a web
of taut, strong, unbroken love,
with us all
alive.