Only then

when the life spills from your wrists;

when the light within you succumbs to 

the encumbering dark;

when your comma curls into itself

crying and confused

willing nothing more than to be a cold-blooded full-stop;

when your fingers stop tapping to the rhythm of 

the righteous beats;

when the green and the yellow and the red and the blue

stop

and f a d e

to black;

when the air you breathe pushes you down and forces you into

what you perceive to be a nest of safety, 

but is only a cage, a place for pain and rage 

to breed;

when the faces surrounding you strip their beauty 

and make glaciers of lovely 

warm smiles;

when the drums no longer invoke a tap and a hum, 

no longer cause a jive and a shake of the bum;

when you are made sick 

but forced to be healthy;

when your thoughts congeal like cold toffee

and you scream and plead

"not me"

and the dreams you keep are the beasts

you cannot free

and the love you feel may be 

a nauseating mystery

to the eyes and minds of the wild 

you find yourself in;

when you wake up in my skin

in my head

and in my life of living death

then -

and only then -

will you have the right to tell me I am wrong.

Only then will the burning hate song 

you struggle to keep in bonds 

in your cold and empty heart

be let free