Month: January 2019

body snatched

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I am so full and so empty

I fill my pockets with stones
and watch the scale tick tick tick to the right

I paint my face to avoid looking myself in the eye

I am a skeleton inside folds of skin
that I coat lovingly with cocoa butter
willing my own softness to seep back in

I look at old photographs and don’t recognize that girl
cheekbones lifted high in a colgate smile
eyes crinkled at the corners, shut against brilliant sun
skin summer smooth

I wonder when I slipped into her body
and where my own body has gone off to

ephemeral

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they say today is the start of something new
each hour filled with the promise of change
and the possibility of becoming something different
someone different

yet I am stuck
my skin belongs to someone else
on loan from a company that no longer exists
but still charges a monthly rental fee

it is a new year, a new page, a new book entirely
but I’ve not quite finished the final pages of the last one

I keep reading the same paragraph over and over
trying to make sense of words that are in no particular order
that don’t lead me to the conclusion
but rather into a maze dripping in letters
from a language I can’t understand

I know you could translate for me
but my body isn’t ready for that journey

there is so much more to see
in this ephemeral life

i’ll tell you all about it when I see you again