That I Have Survived... Poem by RIC BASTASA

i know what it is
to stay in a room and
lock yourself
there the
whole day on the
pretense
that you have to
write poetry

it is prison it is
the strap of lonely metal
around your wrists
it does not tell time
it pays no respect for
norms of
humanity

i know that feeling of
a hundred storms
that waiting for calmness
that seems
to have no end

i know the travails of the mind
its mazes

its labyrinths of
unconscionable
literature

its whiffs of trembling
its twists of terror

as you read these lines
i do not have to tell you that
i have survived.