DISCOVERING THE TASMANIAN DEVIL IS MY LIFE COACH

He wants me to speak without language.

What can you say in a facial expression?

Can you find contentment in chaos? Disruption?

All my life I’ve been told

to speak slowly, use manners.

He’d like me to slurp a hunk of meat

from my dinner plate, break the wine glass

and guzzle the bottle. He says I’m improving

on my spontaneity, but there’s room

to rip apart the wildflowers without feeling

guilty for what was. He says remember the time

your mother said, Young ladies don’t dress that way.

He tells me to spin naked through a continent

being only distracted with rabbits disguised

as the opposite sex. Try dressing as a tornado,

find passion in every twirl.

He tells me he knows it’s silly

to suggest I sleep on a full stomach

and destroy whatever gets in my path,

but he’s asked me to be an innocent savage,

be the person the room stops for.