Metamorphosis
Change is coming, I can smell it. Thin as iron in the air, pressing at the walls of me
I have always feared it. The way it erases, the way it takes without asking. But now I am hungry for it, starved for something that will burn away this old skin.
Still, I am afraid. I was built for hiding, for staying in rooms that smell of myself. But these rooms are rotting. They are folding in on me.
So I tell myself, I will strip everything away. The softness of my face, the small habits that keep me human. The voice that trembles when i say my own name.
I will strip the flesh if it means the bones will shine. I will walk bare and white into whatever light will have me.
This is the point. The crossroads everyone warns about. I can fold myself small, disappear into my own shadow, or I can break the shell and stay in the wind, raw as an open wound.
I choose not the hide. But even as I say it, my mouth tastes of doubt. Will I know myself when I am finished? Or will I be a stranger carrying my name like a borrowed coat?
I want to be beautiful, but not in the way people mean. I want to be sharp, and certain, and impossible to put out.
So I will cut away what is weak. I will starve the softness. I will stand here in the cold, until something in me learns how to burn.
