A butterfly trapped in your net,
again, unable to fathom such
a carefully laid cage, again,
still knowing, painfully and
again, that every wing beat
is a lifetime lost; stillness is
a guillotine again, because
your affection crawls slowly
through wallpaper, again
consuming tendons, blood,
and bone, again and I die
screaming in silence
again.

Tamara Fricke is the 2010 co-winner of the Gertrude Claytor Award of the Academy of American Poets and is previously published by The Lyon Review, Meat for Tea, Attack Bear Press Poetry Vending Machine, Whisper and the Roar, We Will Not Be Silenced, and has been included in a number of compilations.  Her poetry chapbook Our Requiem was released in 2014.  She lives in Springfield, MA, with an ungrateful cat, where she writes grants professionally.