Outsides

There’s a dot on my hip

Somewhere between a mole and a freckle.

There’s another one

Under the shelf of my chin.

My hands are hosts to over a dozen tiny scars.

I remember only a fraction of their origin stories.

Accidentally stabbing my palm with a pencil

Right in the middle of my lifeline.

Scraping my left knuckles along a spiky pool wall.

Cutting my index finger while carving a jack-o-lantern.

I read a Redwall book as the doctor gave me

Three stitches.

There’s a bruise on my knee that won’t go away.

I’ve had white hair since I was sixteen.

My shoulders

(the first part of my body I ever felt good about)

have soft brown freckles.

I ignore the hair on my toes and under my belly button.

The tip of my nose looks like a miniature cleft chin.

The iris of my right eye has a dark red dot.

Look closely and you'll see it.

My pinkies are double jointed.

I have my mom’s legs,

A fact that always makes me smile.

My feet look like narrow kites,

All sharp angles.


These are my outsides,

The casing of my being.

My temple, if you will.

It will drift, and sag, and pull,

Until it falls away entirely.

Ashes to ashes, dust to dust.

What will be left?

First, though, I want to live

Like my spirit is a spark,

My imagination is oxygen,

And my flesh is crisp dry kindling.

I want to burn with passion and love

Until all that remains

Is the soft, delicate glowing embers.

Winds blow hard, and rain falls thick.

I await for my blaze to simmer down to a candle,

Too far from the wood to catch.

I want to see if I have the strength enough

To be my own gentle breeze

To encourage the flame,

Consume me.

Let me never be cold again.