An Honest Perception... Poem by RIC BASTASA

look these ink blots
are not butterflies, they are just ink blots
are you wasting ink on the paper?
are you careless blotting this paper?
you have stained them and they do not look good at all.
do not force me into saying
there are butterflies there
or bats or
clowns, there aren't any
there are no flapping wings
no dragons
no fire, no journeys of a snowman
there are no monsters that live
on paper
they're too heavy to carry on a permeable
sap of trees
slices of wood and lines of fountain
pen...

i am serious now and i am realistic
i want you to feel that i am concrete as a slab as real as a floor
where you stamp your feet and hear my sound

do not force me into a belief that you are an illusion
because you are not

i am not an illusion. i am sad. I am a recipient of your unfairness.
but i am not dead.

tomorrow i will bathe myself with the light of the sun.
i reflect light i am real.

i will dive into the deep river
i splash water, i am a body, i am real.

watch out, i have thoughts and you do not see them.
i have seen you misled me, and i become the storm.

these inkblots stain me. I am real.