Between Bruises & Blooms

I have trouble
leaving my house.

Funny,

considering how often
I leave this universe.

Give me a book
and I will walk willingly
into war.

I will climb
onto the back
of a dragon.

Enter a forest
full of teeth.

Cross kingdoms
with assassins.

Stand beneath
alien stars.

Follow ghosts
down hallways
I have no business
entering.

I will survive
plagues,
prophecies,
monsters,
murderers,
heartbreak,
revolutions.

But ask me
to walk into
a crowded store

and suddenly
my lungs
forget their purpose.

Maybe that is why
I love fictional worlds
so fiercely.

Their danger
stays obediently
between chapters.

I can close
the cover.

Pause
the audiobook.

Turn the monster off
with one tap.

Reality
has never offered me
that kind of control.

So when the walls
of my own life
start moving inward,

I find another world.

Not because
I don't know
it isn't real.

I know.

I know exactly
what I am doing.

I am borrowing
somewhere else

until being here
feels possible again.