In the space between suns,
I shed my skin
to walk flawless amongst the touchstones
of my heresies.
Body slick and scar-less,
snapped tight, taut over sinew exposed,
nerve and muscle and bone;
without protection
in a wild land.
Not even the rules of nature
apply in between worlds,
but we were never “Higher Beings”
and I was far too reckless
to be an animal.
Stripped down now
to bare wires,
I am no more a man,
no more a child of men;
for I have shed my lineage.
I have doffed my eyes and hair
and pigmented hues
that drew the gaze
and words to the tongue.
Like I shed my allegiances,
I never really acknowledged men
who stood up above their people
and shouted;
“Follow me!”
when their eyes possessed no vision
and their hearts no fire
special and singular to this world.
So I stood alone,
bereft of my identity,
but never did I question who I was.
“Unique” was always a word
used to describe the flawed
and the rejected,
but without my skin,
I was just as plain as any other.
My heart and mind betrayed the difference.
The long space between now…
… and now…
… and now…
… was ending,
so I slipped into that tight,
confining dermis once again
and made myself a subject
of men’s eyes,
a servant of their mouths,
a slave to their ambitions
and assumptions
of the pretentious and the proud.
I, myself,
now certain of where I existed,
let my heart guide me
and my mind decide for me.
The rest of me is just a vessel,
trappings of this world
that mean nothing
between now…
… and now…
… and now.
It does you good,
to get out of that all-confining skin
once in a while.
HG – 2017
