Don't Tell Me to Find my Voice

Through my life I've plugged my ears
while men in three-piece suits shouted through bullhorns
that I needed to find my voice. Shall

I look 'neath rock or tree or sky to find
some mortal coil found within me?
Shall I compare my notebook's lines
to a summer's day or the wine-dark sea?

Or maybe
my line
is overlong,
lingering
too much
on rhythm,
pictures
framed
in outmoded
wood?

Or is this voice inside me?
Should the breath of my lungs somehow

linger

or animate some undead pup
with bones in his hair,
a ring through his nose,
to be defeated by a young man who cheated
death by stealing a kiss? In short,

don't tell me to find my voice
until you've finished your own
self-surgery, opening
and tinkering
your own lungs, inflating
your own voice-box
and spattering with blood
your ugly herringbone three-piece suit.