Still the mind

I cannot choose to write these words. Free will
is illusion, science says. In clockwork brains,
the subconscious fires while the mind stands still,

gets goosed into thinking it thinks. To kill
is blameless, and genius, random as rain. 
I cannot choose to write these words. Free will

is a tale of the self the self must tell and tell.
Destiny by day, fate by night, the old refrain:
the subconscious fires while the mind stands still.

So it’s not my fault, just genetically compelled
to wait so long to live, to live so long in pain.
I cannot choose to write these words. Free will

swears we can stop rolling boulders up hills,
promises the boy he can let the whale remain;
but stones keep rising up. Willy’s freed. Still,

there is that voice, this me that bubbles up, spills
over predestination, won’t be contained. 
I cannot choose to write these words. Free will
the subconscious fires while the mind stands still.

CORINNA SCHULENBURG

Corinna Schulenburg (she/her) is a queer trans artist/activist. She is a mother, a playwright, a poet, and a Creative Partner of Flux Theatre Ensemble. Her poems have appeared in: Capsule Stories, Long Con, LUPERCALIA, miniskirt magazine, Moist, Oroboro, Poet Lore, SHIFT, The Shore, Okay Donkey, and more. corinnaschulenburg.com/writer/poet