Out of The Woods

I will never leave the woods. Not the ones inside. I live in this house with big windows. Windows which might as well be walls. They creak. Not like branches. Like trees. Unshiftable. I strip back the bark of my skin. Day by day trapped up here in the canopy. Nothing brings me down. The static crackles like leaves. In the night. Inside me. When the police come and the radio signal fails. They step outside. Doors which might as well be walls. I try to come down. I see the penny. In the shop. I ask is that yours. But the words are crumpled. Mixed up with ash churches stories and supermarkets. I don’t make sense outside. The woman picks the penny up and hands it to me. Keep away. I put the penny in my bag. In my dreams it rolls from her hand to mine. An endless loop. A slot machine gone crazy. Spilling out pennies I will never count up and use. This is not sleep. It is darkness. Stuck in the roots branches and leaves. Messed up and sticky. Every penny is a day lost. A friend lost. A word lost. Hour by hour it crushes me. Like a mechanical jaw. I will never be out of the woods.