Paper.
Paper.
Paper everywhere.
It can cage you.
The right one.
I know.
I used it.
It found me
when I was scarred.
When I was trapped already.
Not behind bars.
Behind certainty.
Behind the screen
in my hand.
Behind the plans.
The timelines.
The impossible work
only I could do.
I used to know
what paper could do
to a body.
A signature.
A stamp.
A sentence.
Pressed flat.
Made official.
Then my name
was on one.
Mine.
I had built
a prison
with no walls.
No steel.
No window.
Just thought
after thought
after thought
locking behind me.
And then came
the other cage.
The one meant
to open the first.
I did not know
the difference.
Rescue
felt like capture.
Hands
felt like force.
A doorway
felt like loss.
I fought
the people
trying to bring me back
to the life
I could no longer see.
That is the part
my body remembers.
The hallway.
The winter air.
The weight
of being taken.
The horror
of not being believed.
The horror
of needing them
to be right.
Paper found me
when nothing else could.
A warrant.
A cage.
A key.
All the same sheet.
I came back.
But some nights
I still hear
the paper
moving.