Awakening Poem by Lily Ives

Pull the sheet over my head;
and let me rest here.
I peeled my face off the mirror
and threw the crimson stone
from my chest into the drawer.
I hung my shadow on the rope
outside the window untethered,
near that tree sparsely
dotted with gold and bonfire red leaves.
Let the wind claim it!

Let the cold crack my skin open
against the frozen early winter soil
outside my home, so that the rain
can drench my bones, and
drain the fibers that held me upright
because I no longer need to walk.
Leave me here alone to sprout
and to let go of the ghastly ghosts
that haunted me in the
form of the shared human delusion.

Be merry!
And in the morning when the first rays break
through the clouds,
you'll find me atop the treetops,
in the earth,
on the dewy grass,
hanging off a flower petal and,
on my porch sipping a latte,
awakened.