i’ve been locked behind a brick wall for seventeen years
i’ve painted every inch of it with dreams of freedom
i’ve filed away centimetres of mortar
hours after I was ordered into bed
i've slimmed myself down before I was noticed
until i could slip through the cracks
“it must be her fault if she’s trapped.”

people hear me singing. they must think i am not captive
people see me smiling. they believe that i am free
but most days the tonnes of concrete around me are just too heavy.
some then tell me i do not need to destroy myself -
i tell them that otherwise i cannot breathe.
i always sleep with the windows open.

i’ve been locked behind a brick wall for seventeen years
i’ve painted every inch of it with dreams of freedom
most days i want to take a hammer to my painted wall
to hell with the iron chains.
i want to take rainbow shard and chipped mortar mixed with tears
to build my own **** house
one with wide open windows and wide open doorways
to hell with the bolts on the gates.

i spent fourteen of seventeen years trying to climb the wall
the next three trying to outrun it
i haven’t found where the bricks have stopped to catch their breath
i am not in the habit of giving up.

and when the bricks, one by one, do lift from the wall
and the shackles slowly rust away
i suppose i will be told to shudder at this thought
i suppose i will be expected to thank the gate-keepers
for making **** sure I wasn’t allowed to live
until they decided so.