I don’t fit into your paradigm
Your hard prism with razor edges
That prison whose bars are false safety
casting sharp striped shadows
of black and white illusion.

I tried to wedge myself into the prism’s perfect diamond chambers
To contort into an ideal that promised clarity
When I first looked through
things appeared clear for a moment
like glass
But they soon became distorted and cloudy.

I am forever on the other side of the glass
Outside the bars
Surrounded by prisms
Burned by unfiltered light as I search
for perspective.

My shadow has blurry edges
that fade into the surrounds
Soft and smooth and hard to find boundary
Fuzzy and indistinct
melting into the universal essence of being
Like a wave that meets the shore and melts into the sand.

I am outside the bars
Where safety bows to freedom.
Instead of black and white stripes
I see infinitesimal colorless atoms
reflecting the unrestricted light of the universe.