“The State of Nature”

Don’t trust the truster.

Yet distrust disappoints
in not
disappointing.

And we’re all
humans, all men
normal, all women wanting
freedom.

You can’t hoard freedom
and be
free.

A philosopher’s slave once
took this dictation:
My freedom ends where
your freedom begins.

All are enemies,
our only hopes.

When we take
shelter, we
take.

Fear freeing.
But fear more, in the
dark and wild places,
climbing into the
shelter of
freedom.

-D. M. Collins