Agoraphobic mantle descends without warning
An ill fitting garment, paid for with blood
There’s no escape
Iron mask of fear plain to the eye
And yet invisible to the deaf
Becoming in a perverse fashion
Dog like
I rebound off the walls in kennel-stress
Pacing, counting, avoiding the cracks
Time and motion become disjointed, as
Abstract fingers probe the locks hidden
deep like old wounds
Trembling on the doorstep
Hampered by nails digging in my palms
Unzip the phone, it’s unhealthy clang a
distant echo imprinted on muslin walls,
Stab the doorway with stitches worked in
metal lace
I encounter
Knitted boxes piled high with unremembered
madness
Knit one, pearl one, they open, despite the
orthodontic braces
Set to straighten
Counting stitches deliberately worked or
dropped
To keep me in
Or you out?
Heart beats a velvet retreat in hollow
cowardice
Deafening in the fortified woven hollow
Falling
Yet defying gravity
On a thread
Escape beckons within
Retreating deeper and deeper into smaller
spaces
Bursting with agitated chaos
I lay face up
Stranded beetle like on my back
Unbuttoning more of me
Than I remember …
