Wednesday, January 25, 2017

Sloughing Despair

Despair sets a sink-hole in my bed,
this terrible gravity says not to rise;
delineates the way seeds of failure
are in everything. It tries disguising
itself as a womb worth giving up

everything else for. I stare at my skin
and listen to the histories of atrocities
and lies for which it has been the flag
of the conquerors. It never changes, 
it's always been this way, always will

be this way, nothing we ever try to do
will make difference. Still, I've made it
as far as the shower. I stand weeping,
and drenched, and if I imagined this
was the world's blood, I would give up

and die, today. Instead, imagine my skin
as I scrub, dropping a river of the dead
skin cells, to be washed away where
they can change into food or compost
for something to grow. They're a loss

necessary for things to grow, even if
it is just a dandelion cracking asphalt.
Despair can be just like dead skin cells:
we are all covered in it, but we wash
it away, if just for today, and try again

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