The Warden

I will build a house of bone and air,
with walls of thunder, and a silent stair.
I will count the atoms of the dust,
and learn to treat the food as rust.

I have drawn a line, a fragile thread,
between the living and the well-fed.
I pour the milk, a ghostly white,
down the drain in the dead of night.
The butter's gold, the bread's soft breath,
are soldiers I have sentenced to a secret death.

They say a cage of iron is a sorry thing,
but mine is built by a hopeful, trembling spring.
It is the number that I did not write,
the turning from the warmth of light.
It is the victory in a hollow chest,
the carving out of all but "not."
I am the sculptor and the marble, cold,
a story that is never to be told.

For in the mirror, a stranger grows,
with haunted eyes and sharpened nose.
She is the strong one, the one in control,
who has traded her body to save her own soul.
But the soul is hungry, a different kind,
for a single, kind word, a peace of mind.

The world outside is a blur of feast,
while I am guardian of the very least
a single grape, a tear of salt,
a life held tight, without a fault.
And the greatest sadness, sharp and true,
is that the prison's warden… is me, and only I hold the key.

So I grow smaller, a fading sketch,
upon a cliff, a lonely stretch.
A monument to will, so stark and plain,
a beautiful, devastating, self-made pain.