Thank you to my cousin, Ben Wain, and to Marianne Arnot for naming this poem I wrote at our writers’ workshop!

Hikokomori

The light plays

I play with light

light envelops us all

and ensnares us

I hide

in the lush velvet curtains

of the mind

I get lost in my bed

Here in the emptiness

Light cannot get to me.

(c) Becky Deans 2014