In solitude she wakes
drawing with chalk
on the walls and marking
the day with a short line

She doesn’t know what time it is
or how she got here, buried down
deep, deep, deep in the earth
but she does know how many
pink, white, purple, green, blue
lines are on the wall
&
how many days it’s been
since the sun peeks through
the holes in the bars
&
she knows how scared she is
and how lonely it is inside

At night she dreams about
anger and flashing images
of desperation and a fight
and now she’s somewhere
where there’s water droplets
dripping and rats scavenging
and her only friend is the
occasional silence
between squeals and
the rhythmic
drip, drop, drip
of the water

And her whole body aches for just
one second of peace and a meal
she didn’t steal from a rodent
with a mouth full of disease

She’s so alone.