Poem - They're There

How will you spend today?

She asked her 17 hours younger self.

Knowing

And still not believing

Where she would end up.

A day that was slush to walk through

A headache to tolerate

Anxiety her constant shadow

Like all other days.

But the sensation she was being watched

Was not like before

Someone was listening to her thoughts

Plotting against her

Recording her every nuance.

Most guilty of all

The family that shared her space

Invading. Suffocating.

Betrayal.

And so,

At the dinner table

She softly excused herself

Crept out the back

And disappeared down the laneway.

As the soothing night hid

Spying eyes

And rescued her

She found sanctuary

In a park

Beneath a shrub

Where she felt safer

Than she had for weeks.

Or was it years?

And when the police

Finally caught up with her

The paranoia was as much of a part of her

As her skin.

As the hospital staff

Held her down

For her first injection

She wondered how it had come to this

The day They got her.