Back To My Brain.... Poem by RIC BASTASA

i am a free man.
i have freed myself from your rules.
your advice that i keep for a while finally
is discarded. It guided me but it is not mine.
i am looking for my own. Back to my own arms.
my own face. my own tongue. my own brain.

you said i do not have any. you are wrong.
look at me i am whole, i am thinking and i am going
somewhere.

i am ready. i put my own tie, my baby breath polo.
my shiny shoes. my brown belt and khaki pants, a little
perfume and a carnation in my breast pocket.

i am walking with your words.
i am throwing them all on the river by the bridge where
you said you like me and my style and by God i have potential
to be loved and be great in the future.

i am going with you. You are with me
and here i am with a shovel.
i am burying you.

i like you but i cannot pretend that you are alive
forever.
great men die and they become
nothing.

back to my arms. my hands. my feet.
my brain.

my soul, my conscience.