This Reclaimed Beast

            This skin falls away, once again. This shell that had grown hard and brittle falls to the ground and cracks. I’m not sure if I’m sad to watch it go. All I feel as I survey the pieces of my long-lived shelter is the sweet grip of fear.

            My new skin is paper, but it is also pulsing and screaming. My hands reach to cover my breasts and then fall to my sides. Parts of me want to grab my old shell, sew the pieces into my flesh until I feel armored again. But at the back of my head I hear those words echo: In a smoke-filled room, In a smoke-filled room, and I know I can’t go back.

           This nakedness is the only way forward. It makes me shout in pain and it keeps me alive. There’s no sitting down in war zones, no blizzard here to hide me. There is the constant sound of drumming, the shrieking of seagulls that scares me and draws me in. There is the wind, and I feel all of it, my arms drawn wide in patient offering. There is the sunset that bleeds before me, causing me to mumble and weep at its persistent beauty.