Hiding in the Abbreviation.

I look closely, has it crumbled, is it cracked, are the gates really open?
Is this still the prison you designed, the home I built?
Every word became a brick, the looks cement,
Each blow a lock or bar in my cage of solitude.
Looking out, is this the landscape you made for me?
I am uncertain, is that two lights or three, is my pain still the stick that wounds?

I am supposed to be free, but somehow this place is chained to me,
Maybe its my comfort blanket in the cold, no authority to dictate to me.
Is this my world? I wrestle with myself when the sun hides,
Ask for faith to the light the way, Clarity lurks in the shadows maybe?
The guards of fear still clock into work each and every day,
Nightsticks and batons are ready, rubber bullets of loaded truth.

Certainty never was more than the terror of confusion, time shifting away,
Words don’t mean the same, the hand no longer inflicts with malice,
Yet I seek out the numbest place in which to weather the storm.
I go soft and compliant to absorb the searing agony that no longer comes,
My heart to still closes, my thoughts hide so I can understand I am the why.
My head still hangs a little, but I breathe and I survive

Leslie Willis