The cage closes in the afternoons
when the light is no longer innocent,
faint and weak, tamed by iron sheets
In the cage, I am asleep. I am asleep.
Away from the ubiquitous brown birds
and from the tree that whispers my name,
I sleep with the creeping old geckos
and the dead rat reeking boredom and regret
I sleep, looking out into the box
that repeats and repeats color and sound,
bad illuminations of an already dimmed world
I sleep until I am sleepy again,
I sleep, drugged by the infinite babbling
of soap and shampoo and prizes
and money and stories of robbers,
merchandise, fame, hate, crime, love,
In the cage, I sleep with beautiful things
of plastic and cloth and leather and wood
that talk and walk and think and dance
and cry and sleep only in my dreams
I talk to to them, I move, I walk, I think
I dance, I cry. I eat, I shit, I sleep, I dream,
I wake from nightmares into the nightmare
that is the cage and the air I gasp for
becomes a suffocating madness, unbearable
and every breath inflates my already loose skin
into a black and beautiful balloon
that will one day burst me out of the cage.
