On Being Surplus to Requirements

How do you breathe

In a room whose oxygen

Has been filtered 

To cater to everyone's lungs

But yours?

Osmosis

Simply a byword

In this scenario.

Where do you look

When all that you see

Is a thick impenetrable fog

And the cane

You have been given

Hits everything 

But touches nothing?

What do you do

To keep moving

When your feet are encased

In invisible concrete bricks

Unable to teeter left

Or totter right

But designed to stay

In the lane

You have been assigned?

Why bother, then

To be less bothersome

If you have been

Re-and-rearranged

So many times

It matters little

That the offended

Are your unmenacing

Yet silent, constant shadows?

When do you get to scream?

When do you allow yourself

To shed the cache of tears

That seemingly has no end?

When do you cry out

In fear that if you don’t 

The pain will solidify

And render you numb

Then dumb?

When do you breathe?

How do you breathe?