The Devil You Know

A Poem

Photo by 𝕶𝖚𝖒𝖆𝖘 𝕿𝖆𝖛𝖊𝖗𝖓𝖊 on Unsplash

did you like
having your words
robbed from you
in doses?

did you like
having your tomes
rifled through
at a second’s notice?

did you like
having your every thought
transfixed on some horizon
that wasn’t coming?

(yeah, we’ve all been there —
and we all know
what it’s like to have
our art stolen from beneath us)

did you like
being on the end of a string
and being told again and again
that it was you, you, you?

did you like
being told it was your head —
all in your head, all in your head, all in your head —
with a mad cackle all the way through?

did you like
having these words —
all yours —
taken from you inch by inch?