Father said, “You’re never freer than when you bask in the wide open, under the sun, amidst the trees.”
I’ve tried what you said Father, but the sun and trees have paid no mind. Not even when I shoved a shovel into the earth and stuffed it with lifeless things.
Not even when I lay on the grass under nothing but the sun for hours with disrespectful ease.
Nobody’s watching me.
The blinds behind my bed are broken – they open only partially.
Yet, I feel the warmth that comes from the sun. I have felt it sporadically
since – I remember – burning my cheeks and eyes through the first-grade window.
I sit in this bedroom as I have for dozens of seasons,
rise to the same clamor of dishes, answer to the same holler of my name through an open or closed hallway door.
Nobody’s watching me.
The doors, windows and floors filter the voices and faces
so that what I fear most – losing you – has always already been.
In the design.
The Hungry Artist 
Jan 19, 2012 @ 09:05:29
What got me going on this poem – at least the first line – is that I’ve been watching a documentary series on the Impressionists of the late 19th century, and in particular the part on Toulouse Latrec. Apparently, his father had told him that he’d only be free if he ran about in the open of nature, but ironically he would never be able to due to his birth defect and accident which ruined his hip and legs. I kept thinking about this, and there my poem began.