They wait smugly to tell you
Who you are, who you’re allowed
To be; they speak your new name
Like Rumpelstiltskin to control
The way you see your own skin,
The way the story must end.
Each word that’s spoken provides
A direction, a tangent,
A torque to turn with finesse
The driest straw into gold:
The way the story must end,
The way you see your own skin.
We are no more who they say
We are, than who we say we
Are. We Cower in our caves
Trading tales like bits of flint.
The way the story becomes
Begins within our own skin.
(November 4, 2017)
