To keep you

Enrobed in an asbestos fallout gown
With stays and laces lead-lined
"To keep you safe," he told me

To keep me

Tunnel vision, a sunset shading of the world
Through these tinted lenses, blinders on,
"Stay focused", he orders. "Ignore the distractions."
The black weight of his control
On my back

On my face

On my heart

I can't breathe
And I can't tell him
He will hear no words
But the song he wants.

I can't sing until I am
Unmasked.

In that toxic atmosphere,
I will not breathe
But I will sing
My own song
Voice vibrating steel strings

And then choke
On his poison

To keep you

And die
Silent again, but
Never again:

The harp remembers every song
It has ever heard.