This is a poem written in 2006 called 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 take it out and handled it/
smelt it, felt it,
stuck it up and looked at it,
cooked it, ate it,
beguiled and enriched 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,
give it all away,
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, say that it
would make things better,
but would it arrive
like a poison pen letter,
would it take away the scaffolding
that holds your life together,
if you were given freedom
in a cardboard box?