Escaped only with my life

 

I realize that after months

Of crazy midnight messages

Of that rooftop maniac

Who stares down into the gulf

I just escaped with my life

 

This person locking and unlocking

Doors against imagined threats

Manufactured in that person’s own head

All of them leading to the roof

Where it is documented on

In cell phone photographs

Sent out like press releases

Ten days before the actual event

 

Or the “I should not tell you

What I did last night,”

Then lays out a layout

So perverse it twists

Inside me like a knife

 

Always forgiving

But never sorry

Always shifting blame

Onto the backs of other people

Always saying “I never lie,”

When that itself is a lie.

 

Sometimes,

You’re just lucky

To have real friends

Who help you get out

Helping me to escape

With my life

 

And that friend

Is you.