Agoraphobia

by Dante Novario

Can you create a room in your body

just for me? Can you decorate it? Can you lock

the door and toss the key? Can you replace the sky with your chest

the sun with your lips, the wind with your hands?

Can you deny my free will? Can you banish my shadows

silence my echoes, make the person in the mirror disappear

even for a moment? Can you dilute my voice

say I for me, tangle my arms into knots

and bend my knees like that of a lamb?

Can you force God to abandon me?

Can you threaten the moon

until it promises to never find me again?

Can you hold me so tightly

I’d vanish? Can you bribe the Earth

to forget me as if I were here

and gone before memory even existed? Can you disprove

my autonomy? Can you entwine

your fingers into mine? Please, can you do this for me?

—

About Dante Novario

Dante Novario is a writer from Louisville, KY where he works as a therapist with special needs individuals. A pushcart and rhysling award nominee, his poetry has previously appeared or is upcoming in Nimrod International Journal, Crow & Cross Keys, New Contexts 3, Thin Air Magazine, KAIROS, and others. His poetry can be heard on the literary podcast Strange Horizons and was featured in a recent edition of Burningword Literary Journal. He hosts a recurring spooky poetry night through Butcher Cabin Books, a horror-themed bookstore. Find more on his writer’s Instagram @dante_novario.