metamorphosis

this is what i crawled for -
like a bloated reptile
toward birth?
through days of submerged sun
with no lengthy shadows to lead me;
an inky lizard tracing my lineage
through the maze, running
along trails of ice and scorn…

bumping into waxed walls cemented with hurt and denial
sealed off from memory and reconciliation
without an echo or a crack to breathe,
blinded from refracted doubt;
the chills of pain seemed unbearable…
soft-souled men with cleavers hacked at me
as i passed through sacred and scarred corridors,
my head tucked carefully under my rude appendage…

their sharp tongues bled with words
dropping like spite around me,
running down my back and into my shoes;
but i gather them quickly and stuffed them
under my webbed wing…
the great tar and feather tracks
mark my passing….

and for what?  to be borne?  to bear my realization?
a transparent film i ripped from reason…
all this to see through my past
and gather my own after birth?
the blood in my shoes is my own now…
i need follow no one’s footsteps;
i leave this age, an anachronism,
born of betters,
evolved to extinction…

the wagging tongues are silent now,
the cave of my passing sealed
like my lips…no one shall follow me…
none haunt me nor question my sanity;
aloft on the wings of my back…
memory melts in flight…

metamorphosis
soliloquies
ja allen