the weight of freedom

the weight of freedom

If I could go back

and tell 

a younger version of myself 

anything,

it would be to be leary 

of anyone 

who tries to make 

someone

besides himself

the enemy,

but maybe

that’s because a terror 

has been both in 

and with us 

since 

The Land Before Time,

young Littlefoot’s journey to the Great Valley,

a couple friends accompany him

and it’s not long 

before the fear

returns again;

a morning walk 

through an Italian city,

a second look

after a lifetime

of being mis-understood,

a German name: NIETZSCHE.

His family

had said he got sick from syphilis,

a festering disease 

that flies high

in the sky 

and waits for you to die,

or one that with which 

you begin to see with eyes 

that lie;

his supposed insanity 

not unlike yours or mine,

Littlefoot had to face Sharptooth

in order to begin again

and as I look across the desk 

I see an Asian woman 

who reminds me 

of my cousin’s Hispanic wife

and wonder what 

I’ll have for dinner tonight;

a trip to get 

a background check for TSA 

and got my TWIC card on the same day,

it’s a wonder with 

such tedious details 

that I still find the time to write,

but without it

life would only be a track

and I a jockey,

where then

would the horse be?

Full circle back to Nietzsche:

EXT. - ITALY - TURIN - STREET - DAY - MORNING

An uncooperative horse disobeys its owner

and begins to get whipped. 

Nietzsche,

44 years into the torment

of balancing between 

tame and wild,

see’s a similar distraught 

in the eyes of the horse,

and runs to the animal

before it can be broken 

into submission.

NIETZSCHE

Set him free!

But by him,

he meant you

and me,

God can’t be dead

if in the end

all it took

was a little belief,

the boulder

in The Land Before Time

a message:

anything worth having is heavy.