Can You Believe

Can you believe

That people still

Bind their feet

Into pointed shoes?

Squeeze their flattened guts into

Tight girdles,

And put bridle bits

Into their mouths to go

And sit so smugly

Self constrained,

Turning off their hearts and brains

So not to wake their souls?

Don’t you ever

Be conformed

To those whose eyes

The bloody worms

Have already gnawed.

The spirit born free

Can never be tamed.

It’s perfect,

Though it’s flawed.

Embrace whole self

Possessed within.

Enhance the liberty,

And please begin

To live your life.

Let nothing vex or annoy.

Condemn yourself not,

Nor ever repent YourSelf,

Or think your essence spent,

But revel in the breadth of it all

And enjoy.

-jenn long