The Beast We Know

What happens when
those ropes that bound you
come undone?

Those same ropes
that kept you safe from things so fearful
slavery was preferred

over the unraveling.
But now, now that each painful strand
slowly unravels,

where then will you fall?
And will you shatter or fly?
And so you struggle,

uncertain which you want more,
to wrap yourself in the last illusions,
or float skyward, proving Icarus was wiser than he knew.

About this poem

Breaking free of the things that hold us to the ground is hard. The unknown is frightening, sometimes more frightening than the beast we know.

Tom