An Interesting Email

The other day I got an email from a student in a class called Visual Statements - The Art of Social Commentary and she asked if she could use one of my poems for her class project. I was both honored and intrigued about the project and I gave her permission to use the poem “The Box” which was a poem that I wrote when I was struggling to cope with my gender identity. In the poem I switched the image of a closet with that of a box, instead of fighting to get out of the closet; I fought to get out of the box which I felt made a much more powerful image than a closet.
Here is the poem…

The Box

It would plea and beg to be let out of the box.
Other times it would bang its fist and try to claw out of the box.
I would take it out and let it play when nobody was around, but I would always put it back in the box.
I would be able to go to work or play because I had it in the box.
At night I would open the box, but by morning it would be back in the box.
I could hear it praying to be let out of the box but I always ignored it and only when I wanted to I’ll let it out of the box.
As I went about I could hear it make comments “Oh, that’s a pretty
dress.” or “I wish I could look that pretty.” but, I always forced it back in the box.
But, once in awhile a painted nail or a hairless arm would be seen out of the box.
It’s walking around in public and eating in restaurant and it is now getting harder to put it back in the box.
When it’s out of the box it knows freedom and when I try to put it back in the box, it turns and smiles and says, “I have the key and when ever I want, I can get out of box.”

As an aside, last year when some friends were playing their guitars, I was looking over the lyrics to the Eagle’s “Already Gone” when I read the lyrics "So often times it happens that we live our lives in chains. And we never even know we have the key" that is kind of the same thing I was saying about the key in my poem; that we control our own destiny.