this new flesh - Anwen, age 15

this new flesh

By Anwen, age 15

I am a completely new human being today.

no chains holding down my arms and legs.

how quickly it changes, the ells in our bodies

we rotate forever, subtracting and adding.

and now in this new flesh I know I’m still

juvenile. if I got any younger I could touch

the womb.

sometimes it’s like a punch in the face, I’ll 

admit it. the shift in my mood.

I wish it more often that I could be soft

arriving like the sea to the shore.

over the years I’ve become more self aware

of these tendencies, and sometimes I just

don’t care enough to be explosive.

that’s when it becomes magnetic.

the mattress beneath me is the only

surface my muscles can handle any more,

pulling me deeper than I’d make it wearing

osmium boots in the atlantic ocean

I don’t know how I get out of bed now

but sometimes I am a completely new

human being, no chains holding down

my arms and legs.