I am shedding my skin—
the old broken down shell
is cracked and sloughing off
my shining shoulders.
I am letting go of the girl
I thought I was last year
two years ago, definitely ten.
Would she recognize me?
Would we be friends?
I’m letting go of those questions
too. They have no place in this pool
where I wash the soot from my body
and watch the way the moon gleams
on my brand new skin.
This coal mine cave turned tomb
For minerals, miners, and me.
Presented to the heat, the flame
as a sacrificial offering.
For what god—I wasn’t sure.
I felt the flames lick my heels
and I screamed until the air gave
out—I couldn’t breathe
and I collapsed as the cave
collapsed and crushed me.
But now I am stepping out
of my skin cracked and scared
like the granite of the mountain side,
and I see the new underneath—
shining hard facets sparkling
in the light of a young moon.
I realize it then: it takes defiance
to believe in joy—to hold both
happiness and sorrow
in your hands at once—
to believe in hope
when the dark is caving in.
I didn’t know it till
the sorrow buried me alive.
I didn’t know till I heard
the canary sing—
reminding me that somehow
there’s still air down here.
Still air in my broken down lungs
crushed beneath worlds of weight
beneath bodies of gods existent
in the image temples of my heart
where I worshipped perfection,
performance and outward shows
of grand love to be praised by man—
Where I bowed to the love of a god
who only loved what I had done
lately and not who I always was beneath
this skin I am shedding. Not who I
was when the cave roof collapsed.
And Oh what Wonder!
the dust clears and I can see
now these were no gods at all,
only toppling stones crashing
before the refiners fire licked
my heels and made me clean.
Now upon the banks of a pool
on the mountainside,
I shed my sodden, sooty skin—
I wipe the dirt from my neck,
and my chest thrums with a new
more solid beat.
Now, beneath the light
of the young moon, beneath
my shed skin, I can see clearly
what I was always meant
to become.
Photo C/O KT on Unsplash
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