Collateral Damage

Hell is quieter than fire.

It’s the silence I walk with,

the silence I sleep beside after I "pray".

I think of escape the way you think

of rain during drought—

possible, but never today.

Halfway down the street I forget

why I left the house,

whether it was air I needed, or silence.

My thunder was hushed,

my fire made small,

to prevent any head games or violence.

My body remembers power—

Walking into rooms where

no one could say no.

Now his voice drips down like oil,

every word reminding me

that I am only a shadow.

Somewhere in the middle of thought

I catch the echo of myself—

the woman who once claimed the sky,

she isn't gone,

just waiting under dust and sighs,

ready to rise when the cage unties.

If he kills me—

I think this without panic—

I will still have left.

If I live,

it will be because I carried myself out of here

on blistered feet and stubborn breath.

The sidewalk doesn't end here,

but I look around and pretend

that it might.

I drag my shadow forward,

and brush the knife I'll take with me

to the next gun fight.

Hand pressed against the railing,

metal cool against my palm,

I know, this pain that is mine —

this is not forever.

This is the stretch of time

between cage and sky.

He thinks he's got me now,

but this has happened a thousand times in my head.

Each step forward is a quiet goodbye

to a "hello" that should have never been said.

A knife in my grip, the guns aimed high,

I traced a path to my last weathered sigh.

I let him rage while I stepped away,

watched his illusions crumble and sway.

Leaving the lies and the cruel words he said,

along with the vices scattered next to the bed,

he looked at me while I thought in my head,

"You almost had me, but at least I'm not dead."