Imprisoned in My Mind

A Poem

Photo by Velizar Ivanov on Unsplash

hello —
is anybody out there?

i thought i’d have the story threads by now,
but i suppose i don’t (i suppose i never did) —
but in my head there’s a chaos i can’t stand
even though i knew i would be better off

if it would just be quiet

it’s not my mental health
even as much as i would like it to be —
even as much as i want it to be just
a passing phase

every day,
my mind cycles through minds
not my own, not my own, not my own —
and the only thing that can clear it

is a melody from another room

and then i’m just imprisoned in my own mind,
left to the whims of others —
demons, maybe, in some fashion of a making
or people with just too much time on their hands

and i know it sounds crazy
even as much as i know people are better off
when they keep to themselves and don’t stir
the air around them at all