Printable Broken Chain Poem Novels & Stories

“Mate.” And I just stand there. Chained. Broken. Watching.

The chains are rough against my fur, against the loose surface of my skin, of my skin and my thoughts, of my skin and my thoughts and my breath, of my skin and my thoughts and my breath and my hope. They are rough and more fragile than I expect, more fragile than I think, more fragile than I can take, than I can take and more fragile than I want them to be, than I want them to be. They are rough and fragile, and the metal digs in, digs in and bites and holds, digs in and bites and holds and keeps, digs in and bites and holds and keeps.

The dark was trembling. Emily stood, her knees shaking but her body upright, the shattered chains glowing faintly at her feet. Each broken link burned like embers, tiny sparks of light against the endless void. The shadow howled, smoke curling into jagged arms, stretching wide as it tried to wrap around her again. “You think you’re strong?” it spat, its voice low, cruel, echoing from everywhere at once. “You’re nothing without me. You’re nothing but a broken stray.” The words slammed into her chest, old wounds tearing open, her breath faltering. For a moment, she almost folded. Almost fell to her knees again.

“You’ll do it?” “Yeah.” I pulled out my sketch pad, flipped to a clean page. “But we’re modifying the design.” I drew quickly, losing myself in the lines. The bird was still there, still breaking free, but I added something. A single chain link, broken but not forgotten, incorporated into the design. “What’s that?” she asked, watching over my shoulder. “Survival isn’t forgetting what hurt you. It’s carrying the proof that you survived it.” I showed her the sketch. “The chain doesn’t disappear. You break it, but the piece stays with you. Reminder of strength, not weakness.”

It was a familiar place. Rusted metallic chains on a filthy desk, scraped walls with unidentified words, and a stone-cold atmosphere. It's uncanny how this room gets even scarier. "Please, don't", I whispered, my voice hoarse and small, "not again plea-" My voice was cut off when I felt a pair of dark, lanky hands against my throat. Tears streamed down my eyes as I started struggling to unlatch the iron hold.

Not with the eyes of a woman desperate to save her companion, not with the eyes of a mother trying to model sacrifice for her daughter, but with the eyes of someone who had walked through the Garden of Second Chances, who had spoken truth in the Red Chamber, who had faced the hollow crown of her own judgment, who had built a bridge from her own bones and had learned, finally, that the bridge was not a gift but a structure, not a gesture but an architecture. And she saw what the realm, in its ancient arithmetic, had failed to see. The Chain was not a thread. It was a weave. It was not a line drawn between two points but a mesh, a net, a tapestry whose individual strands were invisible to the

Due to that, he hobbled around, nearly as good as crippled. Resentment simmered between them: Sean with his grudges, Rowena with her cold shoulder. Nancy confided in me that the pair, though housemates, were at each other's throats daily, stirring up a racket that could wake the dead. The stillborn they brought home did not last long before it decayed, swarming with maggots, filling the house with a stench worse than a sewer. Rowena's grip on sanity started to slip, her days filled with wild outbursts. A video of one such episode, self-recorded, went viral and, bizarrely, turned a profit.

I adjusted my position again, more deliberately now, dragging the chain just enough to mask the small scraping sound as I worked my fingers against the chipped edge. The first scrape burned. Skin against stone. I bit the inside of my cheek and kept going. Again. Again. Again. The metal bit into my skin as I twisted my wrist, trying to create friction where the cuff met the chain. If I couldn’t break the chain— I could weaken the connection. Or hurt myself just enough to slip free. I swallowed hard. Think. Blood makes things slippery. But too much blood makes you weak. Balance. I paused, breathing quietly, listening.

The sobs kept coming, softer now, like he was running out of tears. And every single one carved another piece out of me. I slid down the wall until I was sitting again. Head in my hands. Chains clinking. Waiting for morning. I would be free from this torment within. Waiting for screams. Waiting for anything that made sense. Because right now, nothing did. Then coldness spread to the top of my hands. Slow. Numbing. I was too lost in the mess of my head to notice. I only noticed when the silver chains shattered.

Something broken, fragile. Something I had ruined.