Day 1 - Not a bookend

They wanted me to be a bookend,
to sit pretty at the end of the ledge.
While the other poems fizzled and danced,
I was sculpted to block them from the edge.

But I needed to fly and soar and spark,
in cartwheels of verse and wriggles of tone.
Yet they said my lot was to be stalwart,
and faithfully guard the abyss as stone.


But why should they have all the glory?
Mine is not the only story
of a life that dares to dream
for itself another stream.

Countless other gone before,
held themselves above a law,
handed down to serve the purpose
of another’s inner circus.

Just because my birth dictated
usefulness in practice stated,
doesn't mean my fate is sealed
as a bookend thus revealed.

No old friend upon a bench,
no stone comforter of odes.
Mine's the wind that takes a fancy,
mine's the wide and open roads.

Though they call me fool today,
and claim I turned my back on duty.
I go to seek a different path.
I go to find my other beauty.

And maybe one day I'll be back,
to tell such wonders at you.
Though now another you must find
to be the bookshelf statue.