All are born bound to the device with strips of worn leather. Our lives, our cave, is only an allegory of what is, and we sit so contently in our dark cells, simply waiting. We are only bound by what exists - yet doesn't - with little bars and straps, but the secret exists both within and without the cell, mostly because IT isn't. We crowd ourselves into the cells and lock ourselves in, in vain hopes that we exist.

Time is dripping. The minutes and seconds all melting off like spilled ink, dripping off of the edge of the clock where it pools. Now the face is white, my feet stained with waiting and expectation.We anticipate the flame and it burns in our minds while the contraption sits heavy upon our chest, frigid metal pressing in and rust eating at your tender skin. You might be thankful for it. It represents warmth in the cruelest of winters and the roughness of its nails on your skin means comfort. Yet, it is as all things inevitably are, docile until provoked by tongues of flame. Yes, more so than grateful, you are wrathful. You use it as a tool to perpetuate and justify the violence that you may seek to be released from. They feel the same.

When your mind wanders, it watches. You see the creature as it drinks and is made insane by your tears, and like a drunkard, bloated and clumsy, feed itself off of your decaying body. You do nothing, because you feel the weight gives you meaning, and the company you see as worth. You do not lose your cage. You know of it. You see your neighbor, and plead for them to unstrap themselves, if only for a while. If they do, you must take it onto yourself. You plead with them, and sometimes they allow it.

You bring the flame to me. This secret that I keep caged above my heart will burrow into me if you heat it too much. Quick claws and teeth, I can do nothing but watch, and plead, perhaps. Escape of the sight is my own mercy so I close my eyes, biting my lips as if the pain will dull it. You are the one holding the flame above me and it singes my skin. I endure it because for me it is a sign of your affection for me. Slowly the cavity in my chest will grow, boil over with my own blood, spitting and popping in the fire. My organs will churn and then become nothing but fodder for the rats, feeding it until it grows and burrows deeper still. Maybe you're sorry. I think so. But you're not.

Words written in obsidian ink, scribbled out on spiral bound notebooks. This is what is preserved on my heart. What we so choose to immortalize is our own decision. So chain them. Bind them. One day somebody will bring the flame. They will release them, and it will seep deep into the earth, and the rats will run loose, and perhaps become the secret of another.