Once a Week

You put life on hold, in a box, up in storage on a shelf. You label it so you remember where you might pick up where you left off before you stepped out and through the perimeter marked by spools or razor wire. You have to travel there with only your wits and words. Everything else gets left at the gate. You are just a visitor, but even visitors feel stripped for a time. The place puts you inside yourself, makes you ask what you are doing, why you do it, and teases you with what you might do when you get out. That's the big question, one that makes survival possible. A human might starve here, slowly. The death comes on like concrete curing. You might turn to stone if you don't force blood into the extremities, the ones capable of remembering life outside the wire, what it might be if only you were there.