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.
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