The image is from my Portrait Series.A wistful and ambiguous image.Sometimes the complexity of relationships get in the way of your decision making. One of the hardest things to grasp and hold on to is freedom.

FREEDOM.

If you were given freedom in a cardboard box,
when you cut it open would it make you smile?
Would you know what you could do with it
when you took it out and handled it?
smelt it, felt it,
stuck it up and looked at it,
cooked it, ate it,
beguiled and entranced by it,
danced with it, ran with it,
based all your future plans on it?
Would you go away with it,
stay with it, play with it,
be lesbian or gay with it,
that could be fun;
surround yourself with pleasure,
experience the pain,
keep it to yourself,
lock it up, keep it safe,
put it in a bank vault,
fence it off with chain?
If you were given freedom
would you lose or gain?

We all say we want freedom,
it could make things better,
but would it arrive
like a poison-pen letter?
Would it take away the scaffolding
that keeps your life together,
if you were given freedom
in a cardboard box?

FGD 2006

FREE.

You’re free to have a chance to do or not to do,
To make the most of what you know and what you never knew.
You’re free to save the earth and make what’s not yet made
You’re free to give or take and save what can’t be saved.
You’re free to ease the pain and grief that others feel,
You’re free to take the road that others know is real.
You’re free to load the scales that weigh up right from wrong,
You’re brave enough to make or break, to sing or write the song.
Be brave, be proud of who you are,
You’re free.

FGD. 2009.