Fingertips find scars on my skin
from where one of us tried to tear our way in —
Or maybe one of me tried to tear its way out.
This heavy flesh, too soft, too weak, too rounded.
Carve it off me in wide, swift swaths;
let it fall until I’m little more
than bone and muscle and tooth and voice.
Let it fall until I am only
the shadow of myself that I can already feel.
Let it all fall away until
the thing I know to be me is purified,
until I am distilled,
and what is left behind can truly be
left behind.
This journey cannot begin
while I am still chained
to something so solid
and so utterly somehow not me.
