Your Only Witness
(On Becoming You)

This is what you did:
You went and picked yourself up
From a home
Where they keep you
Fragile and untrusting
And feed you disbelief
In possibility

From the window of your
Antiseptic castle
You gaze out into
Winter’s wasting light
Bone-bare tree’s
Pale yellow leaves
Slowly blow across
The still barely green grass

You look forward to
And still fear this outing
Where you know you will walk
Like a just-born colt
All legs and no balance
You will take your shaky steps
Into the post shell-shocked world
You never knew

You will hold the steadying hand
Of the blank, anonymous orderly
He will only hold you up;
You will have to guide yourself

The hour is late and much has been lost
Yet there is still something to be had
Some reclamation, perhaps
Of all the prior feasts
In which your only role
Was to play the meal

They will never catch those responsible
They have blended into the scenery
Like mini-vans in the suburbs
Your only witness
Will be yourself

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