Raw

Years later, you are still raw,
the slightest storm
washing away the veneer of dust
that civilizes you and
exposes the shards of stone beneath,
the rough edges, cut from your mountain
and reduced to rubble,
that wreckage you would rather forget,
rather pretend never happened,
except that the only way to save yourself
is to cry out the story,
each chapter anther rain,
another storm,
another exposure before the healing
you have sought
so long.

About this poem

This is one of those poems I write when there’s nothing haunting my mind to write about. On such days, I pull a photograph from my files, and write to it. Sometimes they end up cutting close to the bone. Sometimes not.

A decade ago this would have been too close for comfort. Today, it is simply a memory poem. Thank goodness.

Tom