Open

It takes courage
to call yourself an artist,
to shout to the world
that you have no desire
to become a textbook;
to emerge from hiding
behind walls of “whatever”
into the vulnerable open,
into the vulnerable, open
the doors and let in
an eternal edenic summer
so long steeping in our minds;
let in the sweet taste of timelessness
handed down to us in ink, in paint,
bound by struggle, fingered by chaos;
let in something a six letter word like b-e-a-u-t-y fails to contain,
someplace where a six letter word like n-o-r-m-a-l fails to have meaning,
somewhere in the vulnerable open
in the vulnerable
open the doors
and have courage.