Tag: bars

This came up on my FB feed. I wrote it three-years ago and actually am happy with the way the poem was written, with some small changes. 

I was in a relationship and felt trapped. I longed to escape. I did; for this reason, I smile when I read this poem.

I broke free and things are all the better because I was given the strength to fly.

———–

——–

When the walls press in on me, cold stone, slimy, and grainy.

I search for the window which opens, when prison doors close.

Metal bolted tightly, oppression ripe in stale breath;

Little holes for air, aligned metal cylinder by metal cylinder.

I peer out the door and see a tiny hope blooming.

A Lilly in the cell corner opens slowly — white, soft, and curled.

Beautiful, lonely; the more you try to understand beauty, 

The more you see it’s fleeting.

 A Lily in the corner, with little light — it’s dying.

No window will shine sunlight on it’s glory, 

The cryptic darkness covers and creeps. 

The beautiful wilts, wanes, warped – a brown wasted mess.

Sitting in the corner, nothing pretty here — the pretty is ghostly.

The length of light, coming through, above the window sill fades;

All were left with is darkness, and dusk sets in quickly.

Purple bruises in the sky, which I can scarcely see, 

Slither into to a deep black dullness, 

No stars shine in the prisoner’s sky.

———–

Bracelets of steel, cold, and unforgiving — small wrists will not fit;

Through these round holes, which cut and divide, 

Hand from praying hand, at the 4:00 am hour.

I do not understand or know, how long I can take this.

To not want the fate of another, is it too much to ask? 

To be disappointed, not understood, used until I’m broken. 

To always be alone right next to another person, 

To always write these words sad and full of loathing.

Guns in the night, shoot me first.

These shackles are no golden bracelets, 

No silver charms adorn them;

You can’t buy this jewelry at Pandora, 

Steel is only made at rough factories. 

Oppressive, only manufactured, never crafted —

In grace and finery, with delicacy and laughter tingling.

Every time you shake the charms, tiny bells ring.

What do you do when charms no longer charm?

And brightness narrows into a black hole? 

——–

I think you run, slipping through the window.

You don’t look back,  though your feet hurt, 
To run on rocks and sand, and weep blood to be free.

I think you go, no matter how. 

Before you’re trapped, and chained to walls of slimy stone.

You turn and go, before those eyes see you; 

Those eyes you thought saw you but — don’t see you at all.

 And only have memories of days gone by.

You run because to be alone with eyes,

Is too alone; the stone angel trapped in fragility of life,

 Wasting her days, growing bitter and aged;

Never forgiving, the young, who see light with possibility.

The light rises over, a cold moon rises;

 Refreshes and results in absolution.

A crime has been committed, but sometimes laws, 

Must be broken to live in self – forgiveness, in self-acceptance.

This world is not black and white; my feet take off —

Crouch, then sprout talons, and white wings at my back. 

All of this for freedom, to become a bird, 

A lesser creature, all to fly in heavens glory.

All for that feeling in your chest, 

Where you can finally breathe. 

——

©Mandibelle16. (2016) All Rights Reserved.