Let me peel away the layers of my existence
here on earth,
The top ones resemble a kaleidoscope
of awakened emotions from recent months,
I yearn to understand them;
I’m determined that some day I might.
Farther below is a layer of dark fear;
fear of the unknown, of violence,
Fear of rage and maybe death;
the result of deceit and betrayal.
I peel away this thick layer
which grew over several years’ time,
Then below I find layer upon layer of nothingness,
the nondescript colors scarcely vary,
And like the rings in a tree trunk,
some are thick and some are thin,
Depending on the repressed emotions of any given year.
Then I see a layer of violet
which holds a year of tears,
The sorrow here is real and honest;
the sadness is overwhelming.
Below this layer of sorrow is the most fragile layer of all,
Of the hope and new opportunities, even love;
all of which were not meant to be.
This peeling becomes more painful now...
the layers are dark and morose,
Images appear if I look hard,
of a pedophile's hateful body,
Doused with the fluids from his mouth.
But that is not all, they go
deeper,
the next layers are paper thin,
They alternate between the blacks of fear and neglect,
and the grays of loneliness.
These layers lack real substance,
for there was no food to nurture the flesh,
Just as in reality there was no love or touch.
These layers are thin and fragile;
I must peel them gently.
As I peel, I find scattered layers of red.
In my child’s mind, red was evil, the fires of Hell,
the devil in his infamy,
In my reality, red was the old man,
the taunts of the children,
my parents’ fights, my father’s blood, his drunken disgraces,
my childhood fears and worries, the frightening storms,
and scattered into the deeper layers
are bits of black from the dark house.
Where will this all lead?
Dare I peel back the last layer?
I am afraid and anxious and force to keep myself grounded,
But I will take up this last layer and look inside myself,
My mind, not my eyes, sees before me
a primal forest reaching toward the sky,
The canopy is too thick to see through,
the forest floor is fragrant and soft,
With damp moss and the dropped leaves of centuries,
And lying upon this soft carpet and
protected by this sentry of trees,
is an infant swaddled in a blanket woven of soft grasses,
...........waiting to be born.
5/7/98
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