THERE IS NO OUTSIDE
Read more poetry by Britt Wolfe
It grows quieter every day—
not peace, but pressure,
the kind of silence that bends the ribs.
The walls are thinning.
They hum. They listen.
Even the air has learned my name.
I used to believe in elsewhere—
that if I ran far enough,
the noise would stay behind.
But it found new voices,
borrowed new mouths,
and followed.
The world contracts to a pinpoint,
a single, pulsing thought:
there is no retreat.
Only the circling voices—
their threats, their lies,
their quiet ruin.
Though the ruin of me
has been anything but quiet.
My world is theirs to terrorize;
I am theirs to dismantle.
There is no saving me from this.
There is no saving me from them.
The air itself has become complicit.
Their terror has become absolute.
Sleep is only rehearsal.
Waking, the punishment that follows.
The days stack like coffins—
I lie inside each one,
breathing until the wood remembers
it can close.
I am finished.
I have laid down my name.
Strength, cruelty, endurance—
they belong to others.
I am the silence that remains
after all the noise has won.
The law said wait.
Faith said endure.
Love—
said nothing at all.
Now the only door left
is the one I build myself—
a clean, sure line
out of sound,
out of breath,
out of reach.
The surest exit—
the only escape—
a forever sleep
where it no longer matters
that they have won.
Their slander.
Their lies.
Their unending pursuit
that drove me to the world’s edge,
to the crest of the final precipice,
pierced my armour
and threw me over.
I am away now.
And that is all.
I am not running anymore.
I am unmaking the map.
I am ending the room.
I am ending the me
they left here to haunt.
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Poetry Anthologies by Britt Wolfe:
