Permissions Grant I Give Poem by Edith Niemeyer

[Verse 1]

Permissions' grant I give
To thoughts not mine to keep,
To wander past the waking
And trespass through my sleep.

Great minds think outside in,
Where endings first begin,
Where yesterday wears tomorrow's coat
And neither quite fits in.

A splintered looking-glass
Reflects what wasn't there,
While shadows comb their tangled truths
Through strands of borrowed air.

[Pre-Chorus]

What if knowing
Is merely forgetting
Slowly learning its name?
What if every extinguished ember
Still remembers
Being flame?

[Chorus]

Permissions' grant I give—
Come enter, if you dare.
Turn my outside inward,
Find the inside waiting there.

Read between my markings,
Where unwritten writings live.
Take nothing that belongs to me—

Permissions' grant I give.

[Verse 2]

My mind's eye keeps a window
With neither wall nor view,
Watching recollection
Remember something new.

Binary whispers either—
But I have answered both.
For truths can wear opposing shoes
And walk a single road.

A filament goes wandering,
Its destination none,
Yet somehow finds another thread
And two become as one.

Then three.

Then more.

Until the scattered pieces
Forget they once were torn.

[Chorus]

Permissions' grant I give—
Come enter, if you dare.
Turn my outside inward,
Find the inside waiting there.

Read between my markings,
Where unwritten writings live.
Take nothing that belongs to me—

Permissions' grant I give.

[Bridge]

Who gave the question
Permission for an answer?

Who gave silence
Permission to speak?

Who taught strength
To masquerade as weakness?

Who told finding
What it ought to seek?

Perhaps—

No permission was needed.

Perhaps the lock
Invented its own key.

And all those walls
We spent our lifetime building

Were doors...

We simply failed to see.

[Breakdown]

Outside—

in.

Backward—

forth.

Nothing—

something.

South becomes north.

Lose what you've found.

Find what you've lost.

Some things worth knowing
Cannot count their cost.

[Final Chorus]

Permissions' grant I give
To every unfinished me,
To every contradiction
That refuses simplicity.

Let Making's markings wander.
Let filamentary flames live.
Let tomorrow question yesterday—

Permissions' grant I give.

And should my mind's eye open
Upon what always was,

Don't tell me why.

Don't tell me when.

Don't even tell me—

because.

[Outro]

Great minds think...

Outside in.

Perhaps we end...

Where we begin.

And somewhere between
The neither and nor—

Permissions' granted.

Who was asking for?

Make a picture