To Topher

Some people are cages, just as you once were

When you took me into your arms, it felt like a sentence

When our lips met, the taste of guilt and remorse was metallic, gritty, and lingering

It took some time to learn that your hands were shackles

It took even longer to teach myself that they could only bind me until I let go

 

"This isn't Stockholm syndrome, this is love"

"Love is restricting, all forms of it must be endured"

"Love has a hefty price that I should be glad to pay"

I used to say these over and over until the words no longer felt foreign in my mouth

Until I had convinced myself that they were as true as the outside world was terrifying

 

For a while, I forgot that you had once been my home

That I had carefully adorned the nooks and crannies of your being with all the things I held dear

That your voice was a song I never thought I would grow tired of

And an exhausting day of walking through the cold and unfamiliar hallways of other people left me homesick

 

I had worked tirelessly to scrub clean the walls and floors stained black and blue by your previous occupants

I had braved your self-inflicted earthquakes and hurricanes

Because, although they left you worse for wear, there you stood

And somehow in the process of filling your cracks and patching up your holes, I had built myself a prison

 

https://www.reddit.com/r/OCPoetry/comments/3uobaf/note_to_self/cxgv2yi https://www.reddit.com/r/OCPoetry/comments/3u0zwe/how_constellations_feel/cxgvx6m