I become my home

Asylum, meaning both refuge and holding cell,

as I lumber further and further from

The point in time wherein I had hospitalization, gripping socks to floors.

The thought of escape, of touching ground somewhere new

Somewhere else, somewhere he can never touch me again

Wherein prison would welcome him if he tried, only he can’t.

Nobody will rescue a monster, not that they, those, exist.

Only I’m reliant and terrified and pathetic and humbled and hopeless

And the memories live until recidivism occurs and then there’s more and escape

Escape seems impossible, seems asylum-worthy in that insanity is what it would mean

What it would be, what I would be were I to try.

So instead I write and write and write, vomiting words

as though they can save me

Because therapy only saved me as a teenager,

in my twenties it simply turned me inside out

Turned me into a hollow boned bird, an exoskeleton molt of touches, of memories,

of a home I will only own when they die and

I’m home, not an asylum seeker, just a monstrosity seeking attention

For no real reason, no real danger exists, even if

If I ache for somewhere new to rest, the distress flares still signal

Nobody will save me. I must save myself, only that seems like a task

For someone capable, not a typewriting bird pecking at keys.

Not a novel concept seeking somewhere to grow, soil to sink roots into.

Certainly not a skeleton seeking somewhere

anywhere the citizens don’t suck the marrow from bones.