it is yours: a labyrinth
disorder: repeating every moment
you are winding: finding your palms slick with blood each time you feel
the maze’s walls: no exits
here: only blades becoming sharper upon every rotation of
the grindstone: filing down the edges of the brain’s soft tissue,
the same lines of the labyrinth inside: imagine that
it is a library: the clue, somehow, is in
a book: each letter sprouting thorns as you read on,
your hands: pierced with ink and hot with gore; you raise them to the walls,
remembering: the moisture of their edifice is yours.

You are asked at times why
you can’t escape, knowing that
it just isn’t that simple.

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Brady Alexander (they/them) is a queer writer with OCD and wildfire survivor. Their work is published in Catamaran, MAYDAY, Invisible City, Miracle Monocle, Transom, and InclusiveWe. When not writing, they take care of our public lands and pine for healthy oceans.