Twisted in decades of ribbons and bows
My body is beautifully bound
Fine silks in faint pastels
Like the sashes of an Easter dress
Are taut across my throat
Soft susurrations climb up
From the pit of my lungs
Like a child whispering from the bottom of a well
So meekly requesting a deeper breath
Yet how can that deep breath be had
When it means tearing
Ripping
Shredding
A lifetime’s worth of faded honors
Into rags of ruin
All this
While my rib cage crumbles
So I breathe slow and spin
Building momentum until
I’m twirling in wild abandon
Like a washed out pinwheel in a whirlwind
I’m panting from my shallow bosom
Dancing, I inhale deeper
Unfurling streamers of my banded shrouds
Like a maypole’s ribbons
Coming undone in the tornado
Of my expanding chest
Unraveling in my gasping gales
Until I slow to see
I am standing naked
Over a bed of discarded pale tatters
Tangled threads
And unwoven fibers
Raw, my skin glows in the sun
Pores sighing openly
As I breathe into the full expanse
Of my bones and flesh
Unfettered
Free
The whole universe
Billowing in me
