Skeleton Promenade

The most beautiful gifts I have been entrusted with, I am sure, are the people that I love. Those remarkable beings who have fanned my flames and rely on me to fan theirs. It has been the greatest honor to be witness to their light and share moments of otherworldiness with them.

It is for you that I write this, in a time where I am far, far away. Not in regards to distance but in that of spirit.

To so many that I love,

I apologize for my absence.

Truth be told, I'm absent from myself.

Absent and nowhere in sight.
Residing nowhere and nowhere to return from.

The fire you used to notice,
Once incessant
Now dwindles and with it everything I knew to be true about myself.

I'm told to dance.
Dance
To save myself.
I do dance,
but as a skeleton.
My impassioned flesh has peeled itself off of its bones.
It scurried away, saving its life and hiding in the corners of my memory.
What's left is the skeleton.
And the hanger that I used to merely hang off of

Is now all that I have to hang onto. 

The essence, the fibers that once made up my truth,
My conviction, my passion,  my reason
has left me to my bones
The two-step dance that the skeleton repeats
Pa dum
Pa dum
Pa dum

Numbs me.

So forgive me in my absence.

I am finding impossible ways to warm these cold bones,

Build up new flesh
In the memory of an outfit that I so loved to wear.

And then I will come back to you
In the form of something that resembles
The person you used to know

And love.