Cavern Poem by Matthew Christopher

1
Even babies wake up scared.
When they're older they'll learn
to stand and grab the cagebars
and cry.
For now, she can only scream.
2
I'm at the mouth of a cave.
It's dark inside.
It's dark out here too.

In the cave I found bones.
Dry, as if they'd been picked clean by the silence.

When we're alone, we can really be ourselves
but here, deprived of all my senses
I've never felt more like us.

I feel like winter.

Steadily, one by one,
I hear my thoughts
now all at once,
screaming back at me from the silence,
from the dark where the bones glow red.