By making it impossible to do so,
they nurtured my tendency
to imagine escape.
It’s become such a part of me that longing
to be elsewhere, to just… go,
is automatic, echolalic.
It’ll waken if I cross over railways.
Or when I stare out to sea.
And it will linger. Whispering,
because it found some part of me that still feels
trapped. And so it tugs, and tries
to earnestly convince me
that my life here isn’t real. Isn’t worthy.
Isn’t safe. But I know, now,
that it’s wrong. That it will lie
out of fear. And the kind, but ultimately
misguided, urge to find a
home where i can finally breathe.
When what I need is to put this wood and this
water down, and to know that they’re
no longer mine to bear. Because it’s
not the work, but the carrying, that breaks me.
And, after all, I have been
breathing
this whole damn time.
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