Anger and fear surge as my walls close and chains tighten.
With nowhere to hide or run, I am to live in and through my reckoning.
What is it that keeps my soul alive when my body is imprisoned?
How do I sustain my sanity, let alone my sense of self so far from society?
I set up limits on social media accounts.
I take the Eucharist on my morning walk with my cat.
Even my tears are a prayer, head either bowed in reverence,
or head uplifted to the divine,
the universe with its magnanimity to allow my numerically impossible blessed life to occur.

In the silence from the impersonal social mediums,
away from the barrage of news and calls to action,
I begin to remember myself, who I truly am.
I look to the small, self-made artists who are just outside the window.
With all the larger ones deluged with public shaming,
there is a comfort in supporting the local artists, an affirmation in the good of people.

Meditation is needlepoint, the fervent writings I collect in my notebook collection
release the thoughts that are uncoiling from self-actualization.
Then with an unknown measure of time, when the seal is broken
and I finally step out of the stony womb
life begins anew,
sweeter than it has ever tasted before.