The consulate of Other

It’s a pretty big country, my mind

And there is much of it I haven’t yet explored

Rural villages and favelas

Places of hard-working love and teeming life

Broad, windy planes

Hidden, green-draped canyons . . . 

And the government there

I only recently started to question,

Started to say,

What are these voices

That preside over my moments,

Even my most private ones?

That judge my intimacy, and my observations

My emotions, and my patterns

That block my paths with traffic lights

And put barbed wire around my lovely meadows?

Who elected them? Who gave consent? 

Who ratified the constitution granting them control?

Not me.

Not the strong rivers of my body

Not the steady winds of my intentions

Not the oceans of my love

Or the strong, protective trees that feed my heart.

They are an enclave here

Installed by the country of Other

A consulate of sorts,

But it has no citizens within my border

No one needing their protection.

And there are no dwellers

In the home country of Other

(It is, for everyone, where others live —

No one has actually been there)

So, with no true souls to represent,

The consulate of Other

Has set itself as ruler in my mind.

But it has no right to reign,

It doesn’t own me

No law has set it here

And I abolish

The diplomatic ties it claimed to have.

I own my country

And I don’t need those Other rules,

Those fences, all those ugly barbs

That hemmed me in, that choked my vital movement.

I hereby free myself with this decree:

The consulate of Other is not me.

©Wendy Mulhern

April 12, 2013