For Everything It Was And Wasn't

I first visited Arizona

to find my skin again.

It was lost

somewhere southward

in Oklahoma

or maybe Oregon

after a careless downpour

of impressions

that what I was born with

wasn’t enough.

Worried it would weather,

I packed it away

like a sun bleached dress

or moth-loved sweater

and tried to forget

where it hid

until its season came,

but it never really did.

I could still

feel it—

the brush of rawness

on dry days when

the sky was clear

and I yearned to swim

in the murky river.

I once showed it

to an insecure

man who told me,

"You must be

stronger than this,"

and to the sisterly

who turned her eyes

and wept,

"You have so many

scars."

I stopped in Arizona

to unearth

my skin from layers

of remedies for their

problems, never mine.

and that’s where

I found it—

an instinct surfaced

from the deepest

parts of my soul.

We must cleanse.

So, I waded naked

through caressing moonlight

and bathed in

arms of the monsoon,

letting caked

and hardened untruths

melt away into

the once arid clay.

I made home

that night

in Arizona

when I realized

this was comfort

because for everything

it was and wasn’t,

I wore my own skin.