The Gates

I stare sometimes
so hard into my moments
in search of their meaning

that I forget to be respectable so

in the name of those
who live just outside
the Gates

I must ask if there is
a natural right to be
swallowed whole

a given right to be
consumed
by a passion
and follow it
if necessary

to such oddity
that you become incapable
of coherence as defined

within the Gates

and if this right exists

why is exercising it
so fraught with danger
so heavy on the shoulders
and

so hard upon our fingernails
so torn and shredded
from scratching
at those walls