In the Shower with My Clothes On

It all started with the art of

learning how to bend my body

In the direction opposite of him

Vines retracting from the dark

Searching deliriously for a light

That will never come to be

Curling and writhing

Screaming botanical

Tiny wilting flowers piggybacking

Nowhere to grow

Nowhere to go.

My spine screams

It’s going snap

It all began

When I was incarcerated

3 x 3 iron cell

no standing

no sitting

Crouching in the dark

You put me there.

I allowed you to out me there.

It all started with the bending

and I know

It has to hurt to get out

I have to become without form

I have to become water

I have to fall through his fingers

die trying

breaking each and every bone

do what I have to

to get out

Conform to the deformity

accept myself afterwards

I have to break

and now I have to run

with these fractures

without succumbing to the pain

you‘re pulling me back

“I can heal you”

Sprinters of bone

Through skin.

All you can do now

is grind these broken bones into dust.

You don’t actually believe yourself

Do you?

You don’t actually believe I will believe in you?

Do you?

No one believes I will do anything to get out.