When Choice met me at the door,
I cowered from her,
turned away to my own shadow,
its fetal shape mimicking a home
I have long outgrown.

It is poison,
yet I allowed my roots to usurp
the terra cotta, an insidious hand
in my own downfall,
my own asphyxiation wrought
by avalanches of dirt.

When Choice met me at the door,
I did not go with her as a lamb;
I left kicking and screaming,
crying for all that I did not do—could
not do in the span of a year.

I was a madwoman,
a stranger making deals with demons
at crossroads,
& never taking either path;
perhaps that is what real madness is—
the desire to never be given a choice,
a life divorced from autonomy.