Trapped

 

When I woke this morning

I felt an urgency to escape,

yet I felt helpless

as if I were a rabbit 

with one leg caught in a steel trap

and was trying to decide 

whether to chew the foot off

or drag the trap with me to seek help,

and you, my husband of twenty years, 

were the hunter.

 

For two days now, I have felt 

as if I were a stranger

and not the woman you vowed to love

and cherish till death do we part,

for you have been silent,

speaking only when I speak to you,

even nodding sometimes instead,

as if words were too kind a gesture.

 

In a few hours or a few days

I will give in and apologize

for some perceived injustice,

some curt remark

that bruised your sensitive psyche,

and I will conceal my own wounds

to boost your all-important ego…

 

Susan J