See Me Stitched Up?

I step through a sea of thorns

padfooted pink and blue in rage and sorrow—

equal parts along this thin tightrope.

Tell me what good seeing a destination is

in order to prove myself wrong along the way.

I hum to myself, and my stitched-shadow shouts at my music

as an abusive weapon.

I go on.

Tell me how one step

is a cliff,

is a veer off the road,

is a switchback into the thicket

where thorns touch the eyes, drawing thin lines,

themselves being tightropes, into further eyes,

into further lines,

until they resolve into a single cut

severing soul from shade.

Tell me, as I stand over myself in the roses,

why I cannot tell from my hollow shell

if I was shadow all along.