I spread the mortar and placed the bricks just as I was told to do.

With a mold made of anger and hatred I built each individual bar.

Starting at the outside, I circled inward to the center.

Ring after ring. Bricks and bars beyond sight.

Decades of work on a labyrinthine prison built only for myself,

until at last I was locked in the center. Alone in my cage.

Pacing the floor, pulling at the bars, scratching the walls,

I screamed, I cried, I fell to silence, and I surrendered to the pain.

A blessed few know of my plight and work to break me free.

Hammering at my impenetrable walls they call for me to hold hope.

It has kept me alive, but I am afraid of indulging it,

for fear that it will once again be merely an illusion.

Still, I search through foggy memories of this awful place,

in wanting that I might guide my saviors through the maze.

At times I wish they would abandon their attempts.

I don’t want people hurt and lost by their efforts to find me.

I’m ashamed that I need saving from my own monstrous creation,

even if I was too young to know what I was being told to build.

These walls were all I knew. They made up my entire world.

And yet somehow, I never saw them until now.

I never knew that I had imprisoned myself in such a way.

I never knew why I so desperately felt the need to escape.

But as the light breaks through the cracks I know I must.

I’ll keep going till I am found, keep calling to those who search.

They have sacrificed for me and continue to do so.

I will not allow it to be in vain. I will not drag them in.

When the door opens I will stand, and I will walk to them.

Together we will travel to the furthest wall and beyond.

And never again will I allow myself to return to this place.

Prose