Chains

How perplexing is this:

being stuck in a perpetual cycle of

ups and downs, but with the understanding

that the downs are far deeper than anticipated jumps into space.

How I long to flee,

and how I long to stay.

Somehow, things seem rightly wrong here,

and, all the same, wrongly right.

For whatever reason, I stir towards devoting myself to work.

Whether it be sitting in front of text and reading it over and over,

or glancing over meaningless essays or stories with characters more alike me than anyone else,

I prefer being captured in my dome.

This tiny shell, which, in its years of use

had accustomed itself to my voice,

is my permanent home.

In it, I often sit on either end of the glass.

It doesn’t bother me. There are no laws, no guards, no protocols.

Yet the chains remain,

hanging on the grey walls,

urging for their prisoner to return,

and yet begging to never be used again.