My Cardboard-Derived Manifesto Delivery System

I shout my demands
through a cardboard tube,
voice deepened,
echoing like authority.

This is my manifesto,
written in air,
delivered through cardboard:
listen,
change,
heal,
love.
The usual things
a prophet might ask.

But the tube is bent,
one end chewed from years in the closet,
the sound rattling inside
before it reaches the air.
It makes my speech comical,
my certainty ridiculous.

Still, I keep shouting.
It feels good to believe
that cardboard can carry me farther
than my own throat ever could.

Children in the park glance over.
A dog barks back.
A gust of wind
steals half my words
before they touch the ground.

Yet for a moment,
the planet pauses,
the way it sometimes does
when a storm is gathering—
and I imagine the world leaning in,
ear pressed close,
to hear me clearly.