escapril day 17: body as friend (or foe)
I walk through a dream (or maybe they’re memories)
Only to find hidden bodies, bedraggled leftovers,
Severed heads with brains extracted, skins shed and discarded,
They all wear the same face that haunts my reflection.
Each carcass headless or limbless (always one or the other),
Empty of the extremities I took from them to sew to myself.
I can only see the stitches when I look in the mirrors here.
I am a construct of fragments of pasts and the present,
Always and never whole. I leave remnants of old bodies
And skins behind, while always carrying some of them with me
(The pieces I want to keep). Still, I bear the burden of hidden remains
And with leftover thread I sew the untouched eyes shut tight,
So I don’t feel faced with the disgrace of the things they didn’t do right.
Lauren Kathleen 