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83
Trapped
<p>They took from me what I once called joy,</p><p>hope,</p><p>expectation,</p><p>and success,</p><p>then left me stripped bare</p><p>in the middle of the town square,</p><p>where strangers watched</p><p>as though my breaking</p><p>were a spectacle.</p><p><br/></p><p>I screamed until my voice</p><p>became a stranger to me.</p><p>I begged for someone,</p><p>anyone,</p><p>to hear me,</p><p>but silence answered</p><p>with greater conviction than people ever did.</p><p><br/></p><p>Then they came for me.</p><p><br/></p><p>I do not remember their faces,</p><p>only the weight of unseen hands</p><p>dragging me toward a place</p><p>my heart already feared.</p><p><br/></p><p>My pulse stumbled.</p><p>My breath became a battle.</p><p>Questions escaped my lips</p><p>only to disappear into the dark.</p><p><br/></p><p>"Where am I?"</p><p><br/></p><p>"Where are you taking me?"</p><p><br/></p><p>"Please... let me go."</p><p><br/></p><p>No answer came.</p><p><br/></p><p>The sky folded into itself.</p><p>The moon abandoned the night.</p><p>Clouds swallowed every trace of light</p><p>until darkness became</p><p>the only thing willing to walk beside me.</p><p><br/></p><p>I reached for a door.</p><p><br/></p><p>There wasn't one.</p><p><br/></p><p>I searched for a window.</p><p><br/></p><p>There wasn't one.</p><p><br/></p><p>Only walls,</p><p>cold,</p><p>endless,</p><p>unmoving.</p><p><br/></p><p>The harder I searched,</p><p>the smaller the room became.</p><p><br/></p><p>Then understanding arrived,</p><p>not with thunder,</p><p>but with a whisper</p><p>that echoed louder than my fear.</p><p><br/></p><p>I had never been kidnapped.</p><p><br/></p><p>There was no prison.</p><p><br/></p><p>No captor.</p><p><br/></p><p>No escape.</p><p><br/></p><p>The walls were built</p><p>one fear at a time,</p><p>one wound at a time,</p><p>one memory at a time,</p><p>until they became</p><p>strong enough</p><p>to imprison the one who built them.</p><p><br/></p><p>The darkness had never surrounded me.</p><p><br/></p><p>It had lived within me.</p><p><br/></p><p>And by the time I understood,</p><p><br/></p><p>it was already too late.</p><p><br/></p><p>I was not trapped in a room.</p><p><br/></p><p>I was trapped</p><p><br/></p><p>inside the only prison</p><p>I could never escape, </p><p><br/></p><p>my own mind.</p><p><br/></p><p><br/></p>
46
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