ephemera of existence

A Poem by savanna.r.f

Perpich Lit reading piece march 2020

If I could take off my skin and reach into myself I would grasp at the first loose thread, pinch it between my fingers, then pull. I’d watch it unwind like a spool. Draw it apart until I find the essence. Another day is just another loop around the eye of a needle. A finite limit of time to change my existence. Each one, a necessary part to the length of the whole. Then it will become yesterday, and the spiral resets. Perhaps I could pull the thread like a zipper and observe how it all adjusted into place.

But what would that be? What is it that makes me?

I could look at each stitch as it became a weaving rope of my continuation. I’d find the knots and I’d know the calamities that created those tangles like the veins running beneath my surface that twist to create a whole underside sheath of flesh. I could watch my moments until they wore to memories. Where preconceived notions and the birth of dreams began to entwine until the point of individuality. I could take off my skin and examine my bones. They are my solid foundation, much like basic principles, they never change their mold. My bones compose my body; a genuine heart. Time passes and these bones still hold though they have shifted and adapted underneath a continual layering of identity. Through my eyes, the universe is visible as a perspective of my position. My place in time. Perspective is also the state of idea, the things we know. The way I think and how it came to reality. A collection of ideas wound into one solid mind. Starting and ending without interruption. I would pull the string until it reached its end knowing that it was really a beginning. I’d wonder how far it would go. From my dawn to the eventual cycle of scattered ashes to disperse over the earth and its soil. Until my rope, knotted, tangled, and frayed as it would be stretched to its entirety.

If I could take off my skin

I would start with a loose thread

And watch it unravel