You Are as Free as You Let Yourself Be

I'm at that point in my life where all I can think about is how I would love to be out on my own. My own place, my own furniture, my own food, and a dog (I've decided on either an Australian Shepherd or an Australian Cattle Dog). My mother will possibly skin my cat or throw him to the coyotes if I don't take him too. All it is now is just preparing, applying to the school, looking for a suitable car, and eventually looking for a place to live. It is going to suck, financially, but I've accepted that. I've also accepted that, if I don't get started on this new life, it will never happen. Carpe diem.

East of the Mountains
People say, we're in a drought.
When I'm east of the mountains, the place where the sun knows no fear,
I can look at the grass waving in the wind - picturing them emerald -
and I know by the browning golden blades that people are right.
Nonetheless, I feel unraveled here, untangled as the sky and land meet
in a symphonic union, the hills rolling and skating against the blue haze.

In this place, the sun is a coward, between the storms to the west and the wall in the east.
Helios runs and hides, and the sky is an ashy ceiling, with no surprise.
St. Helens sits in her fury to the south.
My cage is a Douglas fir forest, and you can't blame me when I tell you:
It feels so small here.

You knew my frustration with this hell-mouth, and so, like a monarch,
you headed south, fleeing, knowing that if you stayed,
you'd be held prisoner like me; you'd be bound to the darkness, despite your love for me.
I felt the impulse to grab your ankle as you flew, to chain your wrist to mine,
but who was I to clip your wings when I too sought liberty?
East of the mountains, there is another place I am bound, but not by force.
It is by pure fascination, by a familiar spiritual understanding.
I told you of my infatuation, and I still hope you'll remember enough
to come back that way, to go beyond your fears.

She looks at me, informs me of my lacking sanity, and I swallow an angry retort,
quite the horse-pill to be sure.
She says, they're in a drought, and though I know this is true, I look at her
with sharp eyes and tongue bitten, thinking,
what does she know except for this salty scrap of gray and green?
What does she know when she's never been east of my mountains?
All she really has ever known is fear.