Boxes

The box is smaller now.
My arms squeezed out through cracks,
my legs doubled, pulling my spine taut.
My chin burrows into my chest, elbows dig into my side
while all around the sides of the box press closer.

–

I sleep and dream of red fields and skies
of gold and lilac, obscured by the gasmask on my face.
The sounds of birds and wind and rain cannot touch my ears,
nothing can reach IN to me.

–

I wake and the water sputtering from the showerhead
cannot pass through the box. My eyes bulge with the pressure, the
unfathomable pressure, as I gasp for air.

–

Dressing is a macabre dance of pain
as I contort this way and that, missing space, missing freedom.
All day in my box within a box within a box I long to scream,
to give voice to the agony of compression, to beg and cry for
release. Politely THEY look away, moving on to discuss
non-things of great import.

–

But I SEE. I SEE the faint outlines
of boxes around THEM, of boxes within THEM,
of boxes within boxes within boxes.
I dine with others, boxed in, speaking of things
only boxes can understand.
Every boxy thing a universe
of complete adoration for and commitment to boxes
within boxes within boxes.

–

I want to make an end. I do not want to be put in a box.
I know of boxes. I do not want another.
My box contains me. So close, so tight.
The sides press in. They cut into me, become me.
The sides are my arms.
They are my legs, they are my head, and my arms, and my chest.

–

Boxes.
Within boxes.
Within boxes.