Fire & Ice

I am the tip of the iceberg
and my childhood lies
drowning underwater.

Or no, let me rewind that —
I have a better metaphor.

I was boiled in a pressure cooker
without a release valve
and when they opened the lid
I was eighteen and primed to accept
any chemical saviour as my own.

It was already over then
before it began.
They silenced me before
I even knew I was alive.

And what follows is a monologue
in which nothing is said
except when it escapes
the lips of a lunatic
like steam rising from the vent
of a crucible lost in time.

So that I am forced
to go on writing these lines
and you are forced to read them
and we are both still trapped
in the decisions of other people
trying to edge a little closer to ourselves.