by Mikaella, 16
Loris, South Carolina
Dust dances
as much as dust can dance,
imperceptible as dust in sunrays can be,
as you shift from slumber to consciousness.
It is morning,
or something like it.
Your bones creak
as you suffer to rise
up and out of the heavy
and slowly-dissipating smoke of dreams,
as you suffer to peel yourself from slumber
and stumble into some kind of awakening.
The sunlight kisses
where you do not feel it touch.
Naked and bathed
in a wash of hazy,
morning-like light,
you marvel at a reflection-
you marvel at your ugly,
wonder how you ever thought you were anything other than.
And you wonder about a mouth and what it meant,
as it quivered in the shape of a soft and pathetic “O”,
as it pressed against that clavicle,
breathed into the hollow,
bit into the gristle . . .
in a past life, in a past life.
You wonder about two hands and how they trembled
at the prospect of touching you,
at the prospect of cutting something already ugly,
and for fear of being found out.
You marvel at your ugly.
And you dance
as much as ugly dares to dance,
frightening as ugly can be,
as you shift from consciousness to something else.
Written in response to "My Skeleton" by Jane Hirshfield.