stripes.

at our first house, well,
the first house i remember
i used to count the stripes
in the carpet of my bedroom.
three thousand four hundred and fifty something...
i can't quite remember now.

shades of blood red
amid a neutral palette
of ochres and browns and greens.
stripes so thin
that i would wedge my fingers
between each color
in order to keep count.

i had fashioned a lock
out of nails and hooks.
and in that small room
door closed and bolted
time stopped
stripes became seconds, and for those brief moments
i alone controlled the world.

suffocate.

merciless, wrath-wrapped hands
squeeze my malleable heart
inside
your unconscious manipulation
has caused irreparable damage.

over time
it has become the air i breathe
and in that sense i know no other
way of living, of sustaining;
it appears to be the only possibility.

breath after shallow breath
that has lead not to freedom, but rather
to a compulsive repetition
of my childhood constellation.

your hand around my throat,
rage-induced choking
you suffocate my hope
take away air all together
leaving me to come to
in this skewed and blurry reality.