Captivity Poem by Karen Thornburg

Captivity

I have no right to possess you or to even have you. I hate what I'm feeling right now, trapped someplace between love and despair.

The monsters of my past still hold me captive, deep inside the cave I call "myself". In the darkness there is a safety...a numbing to feelings such as these.

I want to immerse myself in your mind; spark the synapses that make me quiver and figure out why.

I want to dance in the darkness and rejoice in the light...but held captive by old messages- past damage done.

I've been breathing the paint chips that coat the prison of my mind for so long.

Years peering out the windows of this self imposed cell…watching lovers, but knowing I am unworthy, locked in this cell…a death sentence for a crime I did not commit.

Sentenced to listen to my heartbeat echo off the walls. Locked away. Deep painful memories bleeding into the lining of my soul.

What about your identity colors my skin with hues of freedom? Am I to lay here bound within this torture machine? Every turn of the crank a reminder that I am too wounded for the likes of you?

Excitement and fear keeps me awake like the ebony blanket of the sky. Wondering if I allow myself to swim in the passion never felt by touch before, will I drown in it?

Things only seen through the hallucinations of beautiful scribes, in the depths of dreams I dared not dream.

My heart throbs for release. Clouds birthing hard rain that pummel down like African drums beating rhythmically trying to read you. I hear the love of your words through the despair of this prison, stopping time for a moment… but will it be my undoing?

Is trusting you the lethal injection, the death of what little is still human in me. Is this euphoria coursing through my veins making me hallucinate the beauty before my death?

Is there any chance that this is real, that you hold the key to this prison? Are you the wrecking ball that will tear down these dingy walls of doubt and insecurity?

Or are you building a torture chamber for me with unfaithful bricks and disloyal clay. Linked amidst what I yearn and what I accept to be true. Credible of a war worth fighting for, yet too weak to prepare for battle.

Liquid sorrow makes an appearance in my eyes, my heart beating a tempo of confusion, skin cold, damp with anticipation the dewdrops of fear for what is in store for me....