by Lindsey
The universe laughs like bells all around her.
Her only music, she holds it to her heart.
Solitary prisoner.
She lays weak on the stone floor of her cell.
Her lips, lavender.
Snow falls thickly, frosting the fortress.
Pushing through delirium, she tries escaping, again.
There are
No doors.
No locks.
No gates.
Each hall is empty.
The dungeons, quietly cruel.
The great room, open and echoey.
Thousands of different paths.
Hope, a bright blue flame deep in her chest, is flickering.
Thousands of different solutions.
Fingers and feet, numb.
Thousands of different routes, but each one leads back to the same cell.
Winter marches on, the year never ends, there will never be another season again.
Night sighs, heavily descends.
And there is nothing but the snow.
Nothing but the fortress silencing her screams.
Nothing but the thousands and thousands and thousands of paths that lead back to the same quiet cell.
She lays lifeless on the floor, crystal tears streaming into the stone, breathing even if only barely.
Nothing can save her but her own sinew.
The universe laughs like bells all around her.
***
Lindsey is a Californian writer and Adjunct Professor. After receiving her undergraduate degree in Creative Writing from the University of California, Riverside, she went on to receive a graduate degree in Education. She was the 2021 recipient of the Maurya Simon Poetry Award, and her work has appeared in Your Impossible Voice, Route 7 Review, and the RCLS Literacy Services Anthology. She is forever chasing the freedom of the written word.
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