Hands of Strangers

I want to scream
I stay silent.
I want to run
I never move.
I'm locked in lead
Paralyzed.
Locked in a reality
None can see.
Locked in a place
Where none can hear me.
Isolated
Frustrated
Unseeing
Unbelieving
She can't be dead.

Yet her urn sits in our alcove.
Silent.
Never stirring.
Tight-locked around the key
To the equation of my life.
All that's left of eighteen years
Gone. Locked.
Cast in place by the hands of strangers.

I pry at the lid
To see her ashes inside
To see evidence
To convince my wavering eyes
To prove to my failing logic
To arrest my restless wonder
To lock my fantasies in chains
To ground my useless hope
That's she's alive.
Eighteen years of my life
Locked away by the hands of strangers.