THE CONTRACT

Come closer, my love.

Not to free me,

just enough to remind me

I am still seen.

Rest your head on my shoulder,

careful, the iron is cold there.

I tilt my neck, breathe you in,

your hair still smells like a life

I was promised but never lived.

I cannot hold you.

My wrists know the shape of shackles better

than they know the shape of your waist.

My ankles have memorized the weight of walls,

this castle that pretends to be shelter

while feeding on my bones.

They called it protection.

They called it duty.

Castle contract, contract castle.

A vow written without my voice.

Look at me.

Please.

Let your eyes touch my face

the way your hands cannot.

For one moment, the pain loosens its grip.

For one moment, I remember

who I was before survival became my only skill.

The chains have grown callouses,

thick skin forming where freedom kept trying to return.

My body learned how to protect itself

by accepting the damage.

I am still standing,

but standing is not the same as whole.

These walls have scraped me raw.

Stone against flesh.

Wounds left open long enough

to invite decay.

Infection blooms where hope once lived.

Even the maggots have more mercy than the silence.

They eat, they leave.

They grow wings.

And I remain.

Isn’t that the cruelty of it?

Everything that feeds on me eventually escapes.

Pain transforms.

Rot evolves.

Only I stay bound

to a promise I never made.

Once, there was hope here.

I remember its sound.

It echoed differently.

Castle contract, contract castle.

The words grew heavier with time

until they crushed the breath from my chest.

Do not cry, my love.

Tears rust the chains faster,

and I need them strong enough

to last just a little longer.

This will end soon.

Not in rescue.

Not in justice.

But in release.

Death will be gentle to me.

Kinder than walls.

Kinder than vows forced at blade-point.

As the contract decrees,

with cold certainty and perfect ink:

“’Til death do us part.”