guttering candles

dangling from the tightrope of a single, fragile maybe

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“I see myself abandoned, solitary, thrown into a cell without dimensions, where light and shadows are silent phantoms.”

– Clarice Lispector

“She was struggling to find, from inside the cage in which she was enclosed, a way of being all her own.”

– Elena Ferrante

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I wanted desperately to believe
in candles guttering in drafty holes,

petrified that the second I blink,
the walls will swallow the flicker entirely.
But this is the hole I was put in
and I have nowhere to hide.

​I scrub every spot, but somehow
I know there will always be a blind spot.

​I wanted desperately to believe
in your word–
a promising opening,
only for the dry down to turn noxious.

What mountain must I climb
to scream and finally be regarded as someone to be seen,
instead of an instrument tuned for abuse,
shaped only to be used?

​I only hear echoes of laughter here;
each day the stones they throw
accumulate sharper, wearing new names.

You poured false hope into the crater you carved,
and I am still lingering in the dust,
dangling from the tightrope of a single, fragile maybe–
maybe this time you won't
lead me another turn deeper
into the underground.

Where did I misstep?
At what exact turn did I become
a cup with no bottom,
wilting in a choked summer heat,
parched for salt water,
claustrophobic at the thought of air
as the atmosphere folds inward.

I wanted desperately to believe