Allison Grayhurst writes

Empty drawer
 

I can’t speak it 

it burns, melts 

down my throat, 

riddling my stomach lining. 

I can’t smell the wet 

wooden fences, touch 

what glistens naturally, 

transient and pure. 

Running from the socializers, 

the money makers, money believers, ignorant 

of death and of the weight of love. 

I can’t stand in my special place, 

domed by a protective layer of faith  

and the muscle tissues of maniac grace.  

I want to leave this war in which 

what I say has no say, where I am pinned  

to the gravel, spoke 

wheels of the worldly controllers 

rolling over my flesh and spine. Is there 

mercy? Is there anything  

open? Oxygen? Validation? 

Is there anyone to talk to? 

I would talk but I can’t speak 

or move forward from this death trap. 

In my mind, confinement abounds. 

Blood letting, leach getting, plastered 

to every underside of skin. 

When will it be gone? 

Will I be gone, clear of this 

disability? Bicycle 

riding, riding twisted garden paths. 

Smile here, nod there at all the people in human clothes. 

I am grey as my namesake, as a cluster of lackluster trees. 

There is nowhere for me, nothing  

I can understand.