the trapped

A scene

~

The poet can't speak outside of the words that choke and sputter inside her throat and veins.

The others call her bonkers, roll their eyes and ignore her.

She's not a proper artist, anyhow.

She mutters about diamonds and foxes and forests.

They do not listen, do not see the meaning behind the repeated phrases. It drives her mad with bright, hot anger.

A feeling; what they've struggled to find since waking here.

Something happens when she throws her fist against the concrete.

The sound of breaking glass, suddenly.

Diamonds, she shouts, and it shatters again. Almost in fear.

Confusion from them, because no one knew her words could give her strength.

They had quickly begun to suffocate but the wind now shunned their thoughts of death, before the new one came and had questioned her words.

She used her fingernail to slice a crisscross of constellations across her forearms

Instead of blood, her skin stayed dry.

Then they saw it in the newfound light -

A diamond, corn-kernel size.

Budding delicately

She returns a scratch at the new one's face

Their chin is split

And diamonds spill through shattered concrete.

Diamonds, she smiles

And there is tangibility and hope,

Because the fox is next.

She scratches ears, a nose and eyes into the grey

Moments later the forest surrounds,

The poet's words the only escape; her cursed words moving the air, elasticity.

They are no longer in the place they were kept for speaking their mind.

~