Amy Moffitt and Annie Welch

Annie Welch

“Girl in a Box”

Inspiration Piece

_____________________

_____________________

What You Cannot Change Is A Cage With No Key
Amy Moffitt
Response Piece

_____________________

At night, laying in her bed

she watches the shadows of branches

make patterns on her wall.

The combination of a sidewalk light and a wintry oak tree

creating a wholly other thing of ephemeral beauty.

_____________________

Other patterns are different.

The way she prepares her coffee every morning,

the orderly disorder of people in the train station,

the raindrops sliding down the train window.

_____________________

She sees patterns everywhere.

The cracks in the sidewalk,

the rows of windows in office buildings

the flocking of birds…

Everywhere, everywhere, randomness

falling

into

predictability.

_____________________

Some patterns push her back into herself.

Patterns of rejection, patterns of hurt,

patterns of depression that leave her stranded

locked in the cage of her own mind.

_____________________

The problem with a pattern

is that it isn’t really a thing.

She reaches up to her bedroom wall,

but cannot change the shape of the shadows.

_____________________

She cannot change the ordering of things

into predictable patterns.

She cannot stop the chain reaction

when she sees that things have gone wrong again.

_____________________

So she remains an observer of patterns,

both comforted and caged

by all the things she wishes were different

by all the patterns she cannot touch

and cannot change.

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One Comment

  1. Posted February 28, 2011 at 6:26 pm | #

    There is a sadness and a starkness in both of these that finds resonance both with the companion piece and the reader. Nicely done.