chrysalis

By Anastasia Farley

two old sisters on a glimmer train

let’s make sure to see them off

and i will give them a message

to send all my ghostly brothers and sisters

tell them how i’ve managed on earth

that sickly sugar storm

which coated my fingerprints

has finally washed away

my moth-wing skin has turned

tanned and rubbery

as sunburnt sealions

i still yearn for the dead to return

to blend the blacks and whites of

the living, the beached and the rotting

and my dreams are of braiding their hair

on sunday mornings

shea and cocoa butter between my

fingertips

and sometimes my nightmares

are of that yellowed couch

and the man who knocked on

the car window

that inescapable shame is

like a body-wide rash

a birthmark that takes up the face

but i’ve seen that choosing to

heal is better than vengeance

better than a walking corpse

better than most

so i dug myself up from the dirt

and look down at my muddied clothes

to remind myself that all things

can be cleaned

i’ve taken up mending, stitching

to threading the needle

i have a patchwork of proof

a kaleidoscope of survival scars

i step over broken ceramics

now knowing in each step