This Place

I’ve been here before,

This place;

I recognize the straggling, ugly, angry wallpaper;

And the way the darkness rolls in from all the sides at once.

I can still feel the sound of this place, rotten and mildewed,

Raindrops falling on a wet moss.

I can feel the way it reaches out at me, sending long, spaghetti vines,’

Trying to ensnare me,

As if it forgets that I don’t know the way to get out.

At night.

Deep in the night.

I wake up alone and I’m the laundry, crumpled in the bed, sore, confused.

Is there one of me or two of me? Three or four?

Such a long time until dawn,

With nothing to do but try to fold myself in a way that doesn’t hurt;

Hoping for the sunshine.

You see, I have been here before.

Every step reminds me,

All the distances.

And I tell myself: I know this place: I’ve lived it and been scarred by it.

But never quite like this. This is much deeper and darker;

There are no happy endings. No gold-find.

I tell myself: I have been here before: I can find my way out again.

But I look around in every direction, and I cannot see the path.

Picture credit/discredit: author's own work