This post is for The BeZine’s online,virtual 100,000 Poets for Change event.
The 100TPC themes are peace, sustainability, and social justice.

Tags

Why should it matter
if I am a common cur
uncollared, untagged
tail free to wag?
Does it lessen me in any way
to be unaffiliated to another?
Does it make you see red
and chafe at the chains around your neck,
or arms or ankles?

for even the ones that tinkle
ultimately lock you in
So you try to have me mapped

Spread-eagled I wait while
my eyes, sound, shape, colour, dress
and words are pinned
to a name
a place
a tongue
a profession
a family
a community
an ideology
a crime
a sex
an adjective or several
till you run out of tags
And I am cut into perfect squares and
stowed safely away
into the boxes in your brain

A lone tusker
isn’t conducive to trust
He comes bearing roguish tags
being the freest of us all
©Reena Prasad

8 thoughts on “Tags”

    1. You are an awesome person Jamie and what you do is even more so. Happy to be connected. Reading all the other writers too. So glad we are all together in doing the right thing and thinking about the greater good! Always with you. xx Thank you so much.

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  3. Another thoughtful, well penned poem, Reena. It’s true, isn’t it? Humans try to label everything – something in our brains wants to categorize everything, even those things we can’t explain or describe…perhaps it’s longing for some kind of order in the chaos? Thanks for sharing this with us today! I always appreciate your poetry. 🙂

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  4. “And I am cut into perfect squares and
    stowed safely away
    into the boxes in your brain”

    This really says a lot about how humans tend to make sense of the world. Well done!

    Liked by 1 person

    Reply

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