Folding

When the panic rises,
when the steel inside my ribcage sings,
I turn to paper.
Train carriage, coffee shop,
doctor's waiting room –
these are the places I have sat and held
a clean sheet in my hands,
observing.

Out in public, where the eyes of others roam,
I do not fold.
Only at my desk before the window
do I sit, hold something yet-to-be:
and then my hands begin.
The certainty of each sharp crease,
the crisp fall of each fold –
like standing barefoot, woken from sleep,
looking at a cold sky.

A spindle bridge, a lighthouse,
a tiny swan:
on my windowsill a paper town,
fragilities all in a line.
One day they will blow over, rip –
but still I will return, relapse.
Into another square of nothing,
so white, so matte;
into another shade of blankness
that doesn't
reflect back.