Words repeat inside me
as if I had no power:

home,
broken, 
fire, 
gold.

I struggle to decide
if I should write them down,
sing them, say them
out loud to another or perhaps

just to myself 
while walking deep
into a forest
with self-care
or harm on my mind?

It is not as if
I have volition, 
to be honest. To be honest
I cannot recall
having free will or
an intent to do anything
for some time now: weeks
at least, months more likely.

Like a plant in spring,
urged upward unknowing, 
cresting from soil to sun
and transformed being, although

there’s poison 
and smoke and foulness
up here instead of health:

what I am becoming
as home burns
and stone breaks
and gold dulls from want
to fear is unclear; walking
unsure of what to say
under a fiction
of choice, toward
a place where words
may be mine again
to choose and live by
with any luck and 
a break in this fog.