by ????

//

• staring in the bathroom mirror
• for once my body is not a prison
• but something worth admiring
• lean, tall, relatively muscular, good bones

//

• the bear sits in my stomach and grumbles almost contently
• he has gotten to tear so much apart this weekend
• a set, a cutie, and yet
• still protective
• of those that need it
• [a friend, injured, carried a few blocks and entrusted to another]
• not himself, of course
• the bear admits no weakness.

//

• for a moment
• there is stillness
• the wolf naps in my heart, their stamina spent
• but in the way that satisfies
• blocks hiked, hours kept busy, milestones passed
• a success in every sense of the word, an ordeal survived
• but still
• something
• waits in the wings

//

• deep inside my breast
• the cocoon churns once more
• [the moth? butterfly? who knows?]
• has had some growing this weekend
• yet still eons from hatch
• she waits
• for the nutrients that she needs
• usually patiently, sometimes not
• a somber mood, waiting
• for the setting sun

//

• i stand in the heat
• of a pouring shower
• and soak, sweeping
• the sweat, sawdust, and sex of a well-spent weekend
• down the drain
• leaving only the bare shards of a broken soul.

//

• i look once more
• into that fogged reflection
• the layers that coat me
• temporarily
• cast aside
• by chance and circumstance
• and i see more clearly,
• cuts and bruises and aches and old scars
• blurred in the steam,
• and for a second
• i am at peace.

//

• it does not last.
• the cold air of a harsh world rushes in
• i wipe the mirror clean, hoping
• desperately
• that it will last
• that I can stare into the tired eyes that stare back at me
• and have some sense that it is me staring back
• [at me?]

//

• it does not.
• for what makes a man
• a woman
• a person
• other than the scars they hold
• the memories that reside deep in the corners of their mind
• the things that they have done

//

• it does not last
• because it is not me.
• i am not the bear, the wolf, or the cocoon
• i am not the amalgamation of those fighting spirits
• the rage and protectiveness
• the need to survive or to outlast
• or the desire to grow, to change, to become something more
• more than the tortured soul
• that i am

//

• it is not me because it can’t be me
• that Lovecraftian nightmare must remain the stuff of half-forgotten dreams
• locked in [the vault]
• the horror that i have endured cannot be allowed to be real
• how could i survive
• how could any human, any person, any man, any woman,
• any
• child.

//

• so it is
• that it was either not me
• or that i am animal

//

• i am not animal

//

• i am not me.