So many nights I stayed up late with him
smothered by smoke and darkness,
talking about freedom, listing all the reasons
I couldn't wait to leave this place
but it was never the small town I minded so much
as the ever present loneliness.

I remember my art teacher
pointing out that all my ****** artwork
held symbols of evasion
-an open window with views of mountains
shadows fleeing from a slit photograph
an elevator open to reveal an aquarium
Always things opening
to reveal something better

My thoughts are not chiseled in stone
my eyes are not cold marble,
they do not remain still enough
to know permanence—
They only speak escapism

My dreams and fears
are not geometric and carefully calculated.
They are horribly bohemian, fluttering and
echoing the uncertainty
of a bird's   f l  i  g
                                   h    
                                         t

I am always planning evacuation routes,
building gypsy caravans in the basements of my mind
I will always be hightailing
through the hedges and fences
put up by friends and family
I have been working on my vanishing act
for the past 16 years and
none of you will see it coming.

And I do not like to show people
the ways I have been broken, so I hide the evidence
In that sense I am a perfect houdini
-a successful illusionist, a stunt performer
I've learned that many questions like handcuffs can be avoided and evaded
as I have become able to regurgitate small white lies like keys at will

There is one escape
that I have never granted myself
the release of a blade
the empty prevarication of pain
I never cut, never slit, never shed my blood
I guess I've always been smart enough to know
that a razor doesn't have the power
to stop the tempest in my head

I will forever remain a fugitive
and when you look at me and my eyes are glazed
it means I had snuck away to my world
I've packed up and run off
and you cannot follow me
nor bring me back
no matter how hard you try