Writing Prompt: Write a poem about something you feel you need to change.
Here’s my poem:
Gossamer
Pulling away old disfigured skin,
unearthing layers, excavating emotions
buried deep; unpeeling fake,
shedding falsehoods,
embracing lived-in-ness!
Transmuting pain into power
and sorrow into strength;
Wearing trauma, making pain look good;
dressing it up like a luxury too expensive to afford.
Glistening, soft, melanated.
Bruised.
From plum to eggplant,
dull red to beautiful brown; healing
Circumstances-
abrupt, untimely stripping, home, possessions, self-
necessitated this change.
This skin, once familiar, now, unrecognizable,
Gaslit into submission.
Unsure of who or what I’m supposed to be.
Thickening up this hull.
Before, delicate, gossamer-thin,
raw, wounded, and continuously ripped open,
like a mess of emotions
too wild to be caged.
Dry, shriveled skin, soaking up life-giving cocoa butter.
Now, scabbed, scarred, and healing.
Sloughed off, in need of exfoliation;
ashen, and in need of protection.
Covering this now familiar skin, planted firmly,
welcoming rootedness in self,
refusing to be counterfeit, insincere;
or anything less than this skin deserves.
Special 2 Me 