PRISONER

No shackles, no bars here.
Yet still I feel my four walls close in.
I exhaust myself in my thoughts.
“I am tired!”
But these are my walls, I built them.
No one except me can hold me here.
“Why am I fixated on feeling this pain?”

I know that it is I that created the shade.
I invited the pain in, though I welcomed you in blindly.
In myself I am lost and yet here is only where I can be found.
How do I wish for this to end?
Is it I that must choose to see?
My eyes are too tired.
This place is too dark.
“Why can I not escape?”

You may think I’m captive but I am not your prisoner.
You can’t have my soul.
I recognize this place.
I step back and I feel the cold concrete behind me.
My hands are reluctant to hold onto the cracks within my memory.
I open my chest and in inhale one last taste of fear.
Can my breath give light for this one moment?
Can I see me amid my panic?
“Oh please don’t let me lose sight of this light.”
I will embrace this moment and I will say farewell to this night.