A Rest Home for Apologies

a poem

Photo by Ekaterina Buyakova on Unsplash

I realized today how ready I am.
I am here and breathing and ready,
in the white space of my kitchen,
a Yorkie bowing at my bare feet.

I’m ready for what we fear
most: to be alone. Alone and
and sleeping upon the nest 
of all the skins I’ve ever shed. 

Alone and sometimes haunted 
by the dresses I wish never 
to have worn, wishing I had 
left them on their hangers,
to fill with moths like snow. 
Instead they have rooted 
themselves to the crown
of my head.

They snitch on me, you see.

I am ready because I can’t
hide these things that I 
have done, or not done,
the stolen costumes kept
honest with the scents of
their rightful owners, tags
still pierced with plastic.

The darkness of my 
hands, and the loose skin
gathered around my knuckles
remind me how I want to say,
I’m sorry. How I wish to write
hundreds of letters to all of
the stages I’ve ever ghosted.

I live in this egg-faced city, having 
pushed through the wreckage 
of all the towers I have collapsed
just for a cut of the sun.

Our only God.

I am ready to give the chalk 
outlines of these losses a name, 
and I am ready too, to be the rain.