It begins with running,
always the same
bone-white panic—
running from something bigger
than yourself, this story
told and retold, until it shapeshifts
into something Other,
and it chases you like a wolf.

Unkindness arrives
in a whirl of black songs,
a triumph made of feathers
unfurling like frost
across glass, delicate
and beautiful, disarming,
until it is too late—
and these words are like arsenic
and whiskey, the antidote
for a love spell gone wild,
a reminder that the truth
is often more heretic
than hope.

So that’s it then—
the illusion breaks,
the sword’s thrown back
into the lake,
there are no heroes here,
no legend,
the mirror’s cracked
from side to side,
and now you see
your true self.

You keep running,
a wake of bruises
and ruin behind you,
soul like a tower, always
falling, and chaos is where you
put your sorrow, making an altar
of it, bone by bone,
until it’s who you are,
and who you’ve been,
and who you’ll be.

I’m sorry.
It didn’t have to be like this.
You could’ve stayed—
just once.

© 2023 Ali Trotta