Running from a life no longer mine,
I thought I was running toward myself
only to discover two years later,
that I aspired to jettison my emotions, too.

Boxed, locked, and chained to me,
I kicked them off, a thousand fathoms deep…
and down in the deep I lost my bearings –
only guided by the pull of their weight.

Slipping from the sight of my night skies,
drowning in the depths of years of repression,
where safety meant silence, and silence was death,
my lungs were suddenly burning to inhale.

Let me go home to myself:
a body that fits,
a skin that’s mine,
at once weatherbeaten and so tender and new.
My burial at sea – a chance at resurrection,
Absent the baptismal and with all the salt of the world’s womb.

Show me a way with stars like home,
where I can feel their light sing on my skin
and call back to them with all of me,
unfettered by the expectation to dissemble.