Human? (version 2)

A Poem by Junebug

Wandering mind, lost soul
That’s how I know I’m grounded.
Sometimes I want to shed this body,
Fleeing all its limits.
Peel off this thin skin, break these feet;
They kept me stuck on the ground for so long.
The itch to leave what I am
Has been in me for so long
I don’t even scratch.

One day,
I’ll molt off my old, withered body.
The scarred outer-wear
That caged my true self
Peeling away
As I claw at its hideousness.
Each of my pores is a flaw
And I’ll pick them apart while they bleed.

Soon I’ll be free,
I’ll crack this skull open
And like a volcano
I will shoot upwards
Expanding into myself.
My pain turning into beauty
As I rip out of my cocoon.

My soul singing hallelujahs
As the past falls away.
I stretch and grin
Feeling my conscious spread
Outward and upward.
My new form suites me well.

My crumbling corpse
Left in the dirt beneath me
Rotting amongst the worms.
I light it on fire.
Burning the vessel that trapped me.
Giggling, I fly high above the flames
Transformed by freedom.
I swoop down and
Jump gaily on the embers
Freed from pain.
The ashes cover my feet
But I don’t care,
Nothing can taint who I am now.

I soar into my new reality,
Discovering myself in this altered time line,
I swim in constellations,
I race shooting stars.
Finding it sillier and sillier that this didn’t used to be.
Everything is so much more beautiful here.

I start to wonder
About my previous self.
She seems so far away
Almost like a recurring nightmare.
I am haunted by her.
Because aren’t I, her?
Nothing changed except my
Physical entity
When I let go of that interpretation
And reformed into my version.

What was so wrong with her anyway?
All that she was, was perfect.
Sure, her skin didn’t reflect
Her courage,
Her face couldn’t truly express
The empathy she felt,
Her voice never could quite
Say all she wanted to be heard,
But it was all there.
She felt so limited by her human encasing.
But why?

I remember hoping
I would find a solution to my imperfections
Somewhere in my sleep.
My desires like an incantation:
In one of these cosmos I’ll find acceptance
for who I am, and for what I’m not.
My newfound appreciation will transcend my dreams
riding through a brain wave, surfacing when I awaken.
My eyes will take on a different view,
a new, brighter lens modifying my vision.

My soul was searching
at the speed of sound,
And all I had to do was
Quit running away from who I was
If only I could tell her.
If only I could show her all that she was.
I left my old body,
I thought I would become something greater.
Yet all I feel is defeat.
I went so far, only to find out
That I didn’t need to go anywhere
At all.

All I was,
Was all I wanted to be.
And if only, when times were tough,
I had known.
It is my reality
And I can make it what I wish.
The way I view the world is my choice.
The power to change my view
Is well within me.
Instead of fleeing myself,
If only I had used the tools I had.

From this moment on
I won’t hide from what I fear.
I will take on my terrors,
For,
Imagination is my paint,
Creativity, my brushes.
With them I’ll create
New universes.