Trapped (a poem)

My eyes roll back.
I’m losing control top down –
Trapped.

A passenger in a car
speeding down the highway
with no driver.
Concrete brick
on the gas pedal,
no hands on the wheel –
Trapped.

I can hear voices around me,
feel a hand in mine.
My head lolls.
I try to speak,
but there’s a thick wad of cotton
stuffed down my throat.
Forget about speaking,
I can’t even breathe –
Trapped.

I’m shaking in fits and spurts,
then limp,
wilted spinach for arms
and a pool noodle neck.
Can’t see, can’t speak, can’t move –
Trapped.

People are talking around me,
deciding what to do with
my limp frame.
I’d feel annoyed,
embarrassed,
scared,
if I didn’t feel so
Trapped.

Arms lift me.
I’m supposed to hold on,
but I’m caged in
a body that won’t listen.
The sudden movement,
gravity, the lifting I’m not doing
still feeling like effort from within,
hurts –
my insides sucked out through my chest –
hurts.

My chest, arms, legs, every muscle
Deep and aching.
It’s taken my breath and I’m
Crying now –
Groaning and fighting to keep
my stomach on the inside.
I’m lying on something soft now—
a bed,
my head on a breast.

Hands card through my hair.
My body still feels wrong,
like a light fixture missing a bulb,
but I have fingers again.
Though I’m not sure they’re really mine,
I’ll take them anyway.

My eyes take dizzying trips
around the room,
capturing furniture, windows, walls.
They are interrupted by my eyelids.
I pull them back down.
Focus, lose focus, rinse, repeat.

This time, my toes move
when I ask them.
My elbows let me prop myself up
enough to drink.
The cage doors have opened,
and yet,
for some reason,
I still feel –

Trapped.