Four walls. Same measurements each day,
I’ve learnt them in a careful way,
The corner where the paint thins out,
The mark that looks a bit like doubt.
The light comes on. It hums, then stays,
No difference made to nights or days,
Time isn’t kept by sun or sky,
But by when they pass, and when I lie.
I sit because there’s nothing else,
No forward plan, no versions, selves,
Just waiting without something due,
A task that asks me to stay through.
The door exists, but not for me,
It opens with a certainty,
For footsteps, charts, a glance, a note,
Then shuts again inside my throat.
I count the space from bed to wall,
Three steps, then turn, that’s nearly all,
A life reduced to paced-out ground,
No exit mapped, no edge, no sound.