Like a Caged Animal I Wander.

This is my world, right now: the smooth, cool curve beneath my hand, I can almost feel the brass color against my skin. The world is the smooth circle that touches my lips, the narrow bell beneath it against my tongue, briefly, the buzz when I feel, rather than play, the tones that flow through, not from, my throat and down the mouthpiece. The silvered keys beneath my fingers are on the fringes of the world, making up the edges of the horizon and the parts of the universe that we feel and cannot see. The symbols I read before me show a way, the steps I take in the sound and the air, the time ticks on through the baton. My world is the cool brass, more than metal, the energy carried through the wind, I am an instrument in this world, and I carry life into this world, warm energy on the coolness of my horn.

The world is cold, and there is the noise of a thousand shattering plates of ice when my foot touches the ground, the dark spot for a moment against the shining white surface, before it breaks through and the snow is soft beneath. The shadows dance, deceiving; even in daylight, this world seeks to twist the mind and sight and it is easy to get lost. Even easier, now, with the only light the ambient blue from the nearly full moon that fills the gaps between the snow and the dark tree-trunks, turning the entire world into a maze of blinding shadows, black or blue or white in the moonlight…

These are my dreams, when my eyes close under the lights behind the bars. In the meantime, my heart beats to a time I don’t pretend to understand, something plays me like a harp, and I laugh under the raw pain beneath my ribcage. The people move around me, they wear the ropes for protection, the guards are there for protection, the walls keep them in for their own good and I keep the snarl beneath my face hidden. I am what you are protected from, I am one of the things in the daylight, all straight grins and playful shoves and punches to the gut, one of the things that glides through the night that you saw through your window, that rainy night.

You think my laughter frightening, you call me out for a lunatic—but you’ve never seen me in the full moon. Maybe if we met in the true world, far from these gray borders and lines, out and away from the walls of our respective prisons, you would understand. Perhaps you would not fear me, if you heard my song in the wild places; perhaps you would fear me all the more. You think I’m a fool, pacing and spinning on my heel, possibly because you have never seen a wild thing in a cage before. My howls resound as laughter, high and loud and insane, and you smile in that shifty way; you aren’t sure whether to be amused at the joke you didn’t get. The joke is the life, the collar tight around my neck, the joke is the escape of final leaving, a release from this far too tame body, the joke, when you heard it, you weren’t sure what to think, you told the wardens I scared you. The joke is these bars, with all that you’ve brainwashed yourself into seeing as escapes scrawled on the spaces. I am a fool, yes, for laughing, and I play the fool with wild abandon, and for a moment, the joke is on you.