This Trap I Face

by Ariel Douglas (3 November 2018)

I feel like a mouse

In a maze

Surrounded by different paths

Down one, a five foot death fall to the floor

Down another, a hungry cat

Down still another, a pool of poisoned water

Down the last, a piece of cheese

On a spring loaded mousetrap

I’m under a magnifying glass

Prodded, poked, pulled

Tested, tried, toasted

Flipped, flopped, frozen

“I wonder,” says an observer,

“How much more the little mouse can take.”

I’m beginning to wonder the same

The little mouse is alone in the maze

Alone, save for the predator

Nowhere to hide

No one to offer her sanctuary

Everything is being stripped away from her

Freedom

Safety

Friendship

Happiness

The little mouse is frantic

Spinning around looking for an escape

Any escape

But she finds none

There is no one here

No one but the mouse

And her hunter

“Mrow?”

The mouse runs

With nowhere to go and no directions how to get there

She runs

With no hope of making it out alive

She runs

As if she could escape

She runs

For hope of a different ending

She runs

She leaps

Right off the five foot drop

To her death

Or so she thinks