Ten Days Missing
My days down here are marked by the sounds of everyday life continuing, time marching on, things turning as normal, just feet above my head.
Ten trills of the paperboy’s bell.
Ten rising swells of the birds’ morning chorus.
Ten barking fits from the neighbor’s dog when the mailman arrives with his bag.
I’ve lost count of the footsteps—so close but so far away—of the occasions when I’ve heard a distant laugh, wondered if I could rattle this pipe loudly enough to catch their attention, if I could use the power of my mind to let them know, to let anyone know, that I am being kept here.
I’ve spent hours assessing how I might get out. What I might use as a weapon if I could free my hands. Whether I could break a window, scream loudly enough, overpower you.
What terrifies me most is not what you might do to me next. Not the cable ties around my wrists. Not the way I’m forced to go in a bucket, hunched and watched like an animal. But the sheer helplessness. The loss of any control I once knew.
If I get out of here, if I survive—no, when I survive—I’ll never forget this feeling.
When I brush my teeth, when I choose what to wear in the morning, when I take a lipstick from the vanity and spread crimson slowly across my Cupid’s bow, I will remember how I didn’t let you win.
I will remind myself, every day, that you did not defeat me.