Light Years

Martians had colonized my thoughts,
short-circuited memories, interfered with clarity.
Friend to foe, welcome visitor to enemy,
they danced over my logic and scrawled over my sense of worth,
took me on a journey of fear and paranoia,
away,
away from,
me.

They hid me in secure boxes, with sentry guards,
rationed me on pin-pricked light and whispering voices.
Parcels arrived from them for me,
but addressed to someone I didn't recognise.
They contained photos of anonymous people with
erased faces.

When they fled they gave me the key,
but
I couldn't open the door
for years
I then dragged myself over broken hearts and lost souls
feeling
opening
stepping on murder victims and violated innocences
on
trying to confront the horror that I had missed.

I witnessed how they'd lived in emptinesses, inhabiting
shallow pools and plastic houses,
how they'd lived half a life.
I cried for their efforts
as I began to complete their incomplete jigsaw puzzle.
Still I cried, seeing the image pieced before me
bold and beautiful,
It read out
my name.