Memorandum For The Minister Poem by Eila Mahima Jaipaul

my spirit flies freely
but I don't want freedom
just paper and pen
so I can speak with myself.

here there are ghosts
they offer, yet I will never ask for the key
to lock this door and feel free
in my solitude.

I know you are not more lonely in your world, than I,
here in a room, with a door that doesn't lock
and visions
which show themselves only to me.

these walls hold perpetual no man's land
where the middle aged go to feel, and not look
where youth go to look, and not feel
and where the old travel, only to come back hurt.

this roof, a shelter
over my bleak head
is another wall
for my thoughts and feelings.

I just want paper and pen
so I'll not drown in those impossibly minuscule,
repetitious moments which thrive on themselves,
outside the secret life of daydreams.