I am neither scrimshank nor martyr.
I am a perfectly ordinary woman
who stands accused, maligned by society
for a crime in which she took no part.
–
In this place monsters and men
can be said to inhabit the same bodies.
In this place I have seen nightmares manifest
but none of that compares
to losing my faith in humanity.
–
I have summoned demons from air,
from places deep and uncultivated
within my own brittle psyche.
I have taken my resentment and my blood
and made them into a fearsome warpaint.
–
My cellmate is panting obscenely from above.
The rickety scaffolding protests
nearly as much as she does
and I think, with some revulsion,
of all the absences I must now endure.
–
My torporific life rarely invites review.
It was an operation performed all in white.
My heart did not survive my dream’s pursuits
and my mind is no sharper for hindsight.
–
I haven’t received mail for many years
and I’ve had no visitors, I am negligible.
I have only my innocence as a consolation
but it may as well be a sack of potatoes
or a handful of worms in a paper cup.
–
for
https://mindlovemiserysmenagerie.wordpress.com/2018/07/30/wordle-205/
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