Even the Picture Takes a Picture

“Like dust on old photographs, I roam the earth” - Excerpt, KNOW WHERE

By The Firestarter

Flashbacks aren’t really about the past when you still feel trapped mid-scene. Posed and framed for his story. Like once the picture had been taken, it would never stop taking.

He once said, “It’s all fun and games until someone’s heart gets broken.”

All I could think was—no. Not a heart. A life.

Until someone’s life gets broken.

Careers. Minds. Bodies. A sense of self.

I hated the invisible cage I was in. The constant capitulation. The fear of missteps. The shame that told me I was complicit, even though I was groomed. Every move I made, I feared being captured—by cameras, spyware, records. How easily the version of me he created justified what he did.

I ran as soon as I had the chance. Out of the city, the network that gave him power, the dreams that once defined me. Out of my own life. I couldn’t pack quickly enough to put miles between us.

No amount of running gives back what was taken.

No book. No therapy. No mantra. No timeline.

There’s only this: the daily awareness that you were pushed out of your own life. That someone saw what you loved and what you were building—and chose to destroy it. For “fun and games.”

Some days I convince myself I am mostly free.

Mostly, I feel like I’m still living inside the wreckage.

Either way, I’m here.

Hidden in writing.

Even when the flashbacks come.

Especially then.

HABITAT

The lion in the heart

Is not the lion of the heart

One cat changes shape 

To dragon to many-eyed beast 

Rattling his cage of probability

The whimpering will to love

Ear-splitting screams

Won’t reach 

This lion

He’s busy 

The other lion looks 

Eerily similar

Circling his den

Sniffing about old remains

He's trained on

Seems silly

Until you realize

They occupy the same cell

And occasionally trade places

What does he hunt?

Why does he run away?

More mysteriously, why doesn't he?

When swallowing the kill

Who stomachs the fatality?

Cup your hand round your ear and listen:

Beast 

Beat

Beat

Beast

Hear the difference?

-Excerpt, KNOW WHERE