The Last Time I Was Happy

[rowens]

The Last Time I Was Happy


I woke up in my cell alone,
drunk in public the night before,
as I always do, I'd called the cops on myself.

No hangxiety,
context matters,
despite the raging meaningless madness of the body.

All the cells were clear,
men and women;

if a man needed to piss,
he could pull his dick out for all to see.

You'd usually go to jail for that.

I was free. There was no way I could harm anyone or myself.
And I could masturbate or shit on the floor or throw up 
or yell racial slurs and harass the women in the other cells,

and everyone would find that not only normal but expected.

If my mind and body were as transparent as those cells,
I'd never have hangxiety again.

[Bunx]

Being in prison
myself. Freedom, was the act
of cleaning my cell

[dukealien]

This is a good illustration of those two tricky words conservatives bandy with libertarians (and progs, but progs aren't discussion-worthy because words mean whatever they wish, and then they demand their interlocutors use them the same, abusively transformed way)...

Ahem.  The two words are "freedom" and "liberty."  Libertarians tend to confuse them; conservatives insist they're not the same at all, "liberty" rendered (often as "ordered liberty") almost the opposite of "freedom."

So.  Inside the cell you're free, but not at liberty.  Outside the cell, you're at liberty but not free.  Is the difference visible vs. invisible constraints?  Imposed vs. self-imposed ("self control") restraint?  Constraints you make a convincing show of having internalized?

Someone famous said "That government is best that governs least," but he understood that "least" is not equal to "not at all."  Absence of self-government is freedom; minimum self-government is liberty, which has to have far but definite walls to give it shape.  And maximum self-government, not thinking or even seeing what's not to be tolerated, is neither (though it strongly resembles progressivism as applied and is what progs call "freedom").

All the best dualities have at least a third tine to their forks 

[Magpie]

The title is brilliantly disarming - 
It makes me angry enough to want to read it.
It suggests sadness and it's oddly beautiful.

[Bunx]

I keep coming back to rowens. Is the theme peace within accountability.
Anyways hopes your not well. I miss your insight and hangxiety even

[rowens]

As you all know from reading my Sewerlogues, People are Funhouse Animals. The totems and reflections of the house of mirrors are blinding and confusing, and get mixed into the fluctuations of processes, needs, moods, times of day, seasons, weather and situations. The poem is not reflecting mirrors but clear walls. The only problem, which is also a solution, is the walls.

Confusion is clear. Clarity.