Poem by Faith Edwards
There are memories that still take strolls on my winding roads.
There are poems they have etched into my skin
To remind me of words spoken and words unsaid
Using literary devices to depict a life I used to live in.
They paint on the ceiling of my skull,
A modern Sistine Chapel in the making,
To ensure I don’t forget the scenes of my life that made me.
The ones I try to forget are the ones that continue to persist
Like old scabs that I am tempted to pick.
I can hear my mother saying don’t pick at it, just look at it
Don’t disturb it while it’s healing, self-correcting, and restoring.
So I watch the masterpiece come into being on sleepless nights.
They say at night the body rejuvenates and perhaps that’s when the mind recreates that which is damaged during the day.
A metamorphosis of sorrow into stories shared in circles where
it’s necessary to have two bodies carry one memory,
where one is willing to sacrifice allowing the other to be the beneficiary
because the past can be heavy.
I know that as I’m watching the masterpiece unfold under the night sky
someone else is too.
We’re gazing at the same sky, but its composition is different for each of us.
