The Hollows

I wish to be kept safe but, under billows of thunder
There is no longer any clarity left.
If I could summon the last remains of your warmth,
They would be tumbling down into words of loss and perhaps anger
Because that is all your lips could muster; that is all your hands denied.

I look to you and see myself and whimper.
Your arms are a cage but I lock myself in because freedom without you is empty.
I am your flesh, not yet your answer.
You pull me along, dead weight as I am– eager to separate,
You look to me and see yourself and cackle.

Your words could be mine for all you know,
Everything else is; everything else merges under common occurrence.
I am but a traitor nurturing a conscience of my own
While you trade in youth and poisoned hope
And teach me of the world through eyes that hold no truth.

If fire runs beneath my skin, you put it out,
And that is why I fear how smoke reflects against mirrors.
You erase every footstep of mine.
I was never limitless and — that — you carved deep into my wishes
So that I keep awake and build more dust around your feet.

I’m afraid still and I whisper to my shadows to keep me company,
They relent because unlike you, they find me harmless.
Yet often, when nights are cold and dark, I ask:
“Where are you, Mother?”
But this time, there is no echo.
The hollows are silent.