Underneath this colored flesh is a graveyard
Moss covered headstones where pieces of me lie
Where my vertebrae lay strewn
A place where my fingertips grab my spine and shake it like a rattlesnake
Like an old dusty rug
Bruised and battered like kettle drums
It sounds like a whip
As it cracks, I hear the escape
The long forgotten echoes
The layers of calcium deposits and bones spurs
The nerves that held tightly wound memories
Like a jaw wired shut.
I swing it above my head
Lay it out to dry like laundry on the line.
Exposed linen ligaments.
Some bones were never meant to be buried
A small space where sternum meets clavicle
Where the weary rest their heads
And stories mix with marrow
Hips of stone and belly full of tumbleweeds
I come calling for her
The one I left here
The one who ran away
The unloved and the unwilling
I know them all by name
By sound
By touch
By sight
I smell of earth and decay
Of fresh fallen snow and new life
Shoulders cut from quarries
To carry the burden
The guilt
The weight
The waiting
Sifting and sorting fragments of self
Like panning for fool’s gold
Bones of sunken treasure
Bones from Ethiopia and South Africa
Traces from mitochondrial Eve
I, too, am pieces of these
Ground from mortar and pestle
Of arid spice and sea salt
Bones unearthed like shards of clay from a riverbank
I pull my body back
I repurpose it
Fill the spaces with photographs and pages torn from books
With the feeling of my hair being tossed in the wind.
And the sound of him sleeping
With birth
And death
And the endless beautiful sorrow
Like falling songbirds
I am nesting in the branches of my being
Deciduous bones
Dormant
bending me like the bow
Each new breath
(each rib)
a clean and sharpened arrow
For more self-study, The Urban Howl recommends 52 Ways to Live a Kick-Ass Life: BS-Free Wisdom to Ignite Your Inner Badass and Live the Life You Deserve
Sip a little more:
I Came Into This World With A Roar That Can’t Be Silenced
Rest Your Head Upon My Heart & Feel The Rhythm Of Life
Let Me Tell You What Type Of Depth I Seek
