Safe House

Photo by Mathieu Turle on Unsplash

A Poem by Heather Cadenhead

I live above-ground now, 

red clovers my ground cover 

in place of wet pebbles. 

My lungs still burn 

from the smoke that 

filled the safe house. 

Why we called it a safe 

house, I cannot tell you— 

it was cold conjecture 

served in porcelain cups. 

It was starless claustrophobia. 

I’m lying when I say 

I don’t know why 

we called it the safe house. 

The truth is, we were 

happiest alone, cave spiders 

crafting webs so impenetrable 

that we saw nothing, 

heard nothing, 

felt nothing— 

except each other.

Heather Cadenhead's writing is published or forthcoming in Ekstasis by Christianity Today, Autism Speaks, The Rabbit Room, Valley Voices, Relief: A Journal of Art and Faith, Reformed Journal, The Clayjar Review, Radix Magazine, and elsewhere. Previously, she was a recipient of the New Plains Review Editorial Prize. Her poem, “Illiterate,” was nominated for Best of the Net. She lives in Tennessee with her husband and their two children.