I am coming to understand your expectations.
You expect me, finally, to be something
other than idea, something not
imaginary.
You expect me to be a particular fleshy body.
You expect me to affirm the demographics of my concrete data.
You expect me to be a flow in a network of biology.
You expect me to be a node in a graph of history.
You expect me to be an ego
received from the form of the the mask
you have hung on my face.
You expect me to have a seat
at the game table, to choose a side,
to win or to lose.
You expect me to study with admiration
those who have struggled, writhed, suffered, died
within these expectations.
I am coming to understand how
you have no use for —
perhaps, cannot even see or hear or imagine —
those who slip from the grip
of your expectations.
I see them, when it is most light. When I am.
Even now, when it is dark,
I imagine them, imagine
myriad and incomprehensible,
winged with terrible beauty,
gentle in dreamy simplicity,
angels and animals
who don’t understand
your expectations, who have always been
an idea of themselves,
an idea of gods.