Planning A Break-out (Poetry)

My body is a prison
and the walls are stubborn skin
only me and the quiet spirits
hear the wail that lives within

There’s a high and dingy window
where the moon peeps in to tease
she prods awake the heartache
with her silver memories

While I yearn for fields of summer
it is winter in my head
and the voices come to visit
crowding old and loved and dead

All my weeping cannot alter
what comes on each morning’s tide —
the thin sorry wrecks of wishes
heap their empty hulls beside

the ghosts of pretty pirates
who once robbed this body blind
as ruthless as past lovers
every contract left unsigned

As pain’s darkness washes over
the grim shadows wrap around
I drug deep my witless gaoler
my last dream is freedom-bound