Noticing Chains

Those who do not move, do not notice their chains. ~ Rosa Luxemburg

[Is a quotation less a poetry prompt
when you Google her and disagree on every aspect of life?
Is truth truth or is it limited to the truth meant
when first the words were joined?]

I wore chains most of my life...not the gold and silver
I sometimes hung around my neck. No, my chains were crafted
of sugar and flour and buttery goo, patted on year after year
to enlarge the entity and embed the chains. And if I sat still
it didn't hurt. But time came when the chains chafed
when I wore skirts and shredded pants right there alone.
My knees gave way, I couldn't walk without falling
or at least being paralyzed by fear of a tumble. So I sat still
and entertained myself by crafting larger chains,
a chair seeming smaller than it had the year before.
Knees together? That was something for a svelte mother to say,
not my life's reality. Crossed legs? Something to long to do...
When the day came when to continue was worse than death
and death felt like a welcome friend, I began to move.
I still walked stiffly, waddling, falling sometimes, but walked
into the rooms of recovery, and the movement made me see
the immensity of the chains I wore. And in seeing,
in moving through twelve simple steps, I noticed the chains...
were disappearing.