Liberty Starts As A Virtue Poem by Jesse Ellsbury

I have been thrust
formless
into a void, with a door
behind me
that has been shut.

Furies and banshees howl delirious,
cursed by the past
with an invisible future
like kittens
without a cat.

I have been warned not to stare
into the abyss
by men who are wiser than me,
but I’m engulfed by nothing,
while everything else remains free.

Liberty starts as a virtue
but rots to a vice,
eaten slowly as small yet not lonely
clouds of brilliance
shining in a vacuum between water and ice.

Only time will tell if Heaven or Hell
will form
on the firmament of tabula rasa,
but mi casa
nonetheless shall be su casa, as well.