When You Can't Scream You Cry

If I were a snake I would shed my skin
peeling off layers and layers to start over again
slithering to bask in the sun fresh and new
But since I'm not a snake, I'll bear my scars
that piles on top of each other like worms in a bucket
creating hopscotch patterns on my knees and arms.

For some of my friends, when you look at the underbelly
of their arms you can see the eggplant veins shining through,
translucent as an eggshell. At times I feel like that all over-
as if my insides have been hollowed out to leave behind
the fragile shell of a person, bobbing down a stream
with an ever increasing current.

If I were an ostrich, I'd hide my face in the sand,
let rivulets of tears run off into the soil and sustain
forests. Imagine grass and trees and flowers growing
in the world above my head. I would close my eyes
and relish in the self same darkness that would be present
when they opened.