“THERE” is a brief piece of confessional free verse that leans into psychological and existential poetry, using sparse language to convey emotional isolation and fractured identity. The tone is bleak, intimate, and quietly despairing, while the voice feels vulnerable yet emotionally restrained, as though the speaker can only approach their pain indirectly through metaphor. The poem’s greatest strength is its compression: in just a few lines, it establishes a powerful contrast between decay and emotional defense. Written for the “A Shattered Cup of Doom” novella, “Tome” appears in the “Second Shards of Broken Glass” chapbook.
“THERE”
i don’t know
my rotting flesh
from the armor
that i bear
my heart is locked
in a black box
and i don’t have
the key to there
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