The Context of Prison

The desert in the morning; it used to smell like freedom for me. Now it's just the smell of a different prison. Looser chains then the one that came before maybe, but still a prison. A prison built by others, and by me. By a hundred lies and a hundred truths, brick by brick I was sealed in again by the illusion of freedom. If I didn't build it, I almost certainly locked the door. Sunlight is an illusion, rain just a half-forgotten echo, only the dead keep me company here, the dead who repeat every lie I've ever told back to me, and every truth I've used as a lie. Demons that chase me around my head if I ever pause to look at the prison walls. That's how they keep you here; it hurts to see past the illusion so eventually you learn not to.

I used to long for the summer days that smelled of the desert. New dirt to play in, new sky to lie under. I didn't know that dirt would just be dirt one day, and the desert would not be this alien world for me to explore, but another familiar dead end, where I could back myself into corners I don't see how I could ever escape from. Is this what if feels like? Looking back before life shattered all your innocence? Remembering things hurts, planning just leads to disappointments but if you stay locked in the present you lose context for life, and insanity is life without context. No one can break me out of this prison but me, but sometimes I wonder if I will ever be strong enough.

Guilt for a dead woman keeps me close to all I abhor, and the resentment that slowly builds is poisoning the purest bond I ever had. I can't be what they say she wanted, but even knowing this I can't stop trying. Manipulation is still just that even when I know it's happening. My love for her is the chain used to hold me, the whip used to beat me, but turning my back on that would be the greatest betrayal I could ever offer to someone I never wanted to betray. Am I the only one who sees the stain obscuring the memories? I'm losing sight of the truths she told, in what they want me to believe she said. "What would your mother want you to do?" The sentence strangles me. She would never want that. Would she? She always kept the peace in the family but I can't seem to fill the void, even as they try to whittle me away so I can. When they look at me, is all they see their ideal of a dead woman? I'm losing her memory and I'm losing my mind. It's all I seem to know for certain anymore.