KEIRA LYNN DODD

Weight

 

Life adds weight:

Not "rocks in pockets

about to walk into a river"
weight, but the "heavy slab of marble

rolled over a tomb" kind.

It slides a little closer to sealed

every day, with the air getting staler,

and my fingers gripping the edges,

trying to widen the slit,

so I can see the sun outside.

I can almost fit through the crack

if I wiggle and work my way out,

but I stay in here, year after year,

afraid that my pale skin will burn,

afraid that dust will come out of my mouth

instead of words, afraid that life will stick me

back in again, so I put myself there,

under all that weight.

Not the "eat myself into oblivion

so I can't leave the bed" kind, 

but the "feet nailed to the floor
permanently grounded" kind,

so that when I try to fly,

I have to lift the earth with me,

wishing I were a balloon

filled with light instead of

a coffin filled with funeral dirt,

but to pull my feet free,

I'd have to tear and bleed,

the weight of my blood

oozing out, black and inky,

my skin hanging loose,

a robe hiding my hypocrisy,

a bird in a leaden cage,

invisible to all but me.

 

Even if I could let go,

shake off all this weight,

and crawl out, cut loose,

drop the heavy act,

become free and clear,

naked and weightless,

I wouldn't float or fly,

but turn to bone,

white and hollow,

empty of meaning.

Not the "blank page waiting

to be filled with words" kind,

but the "panicked, nothing
to say for myself" kind

that people point at 

and whisper, "What kind of person
would leave all that weight behind?"

Because weight is stability.
Weight is comfort. 

So I stay weighted,

rooted, stapled, fixed, glued,

choked, smashed, anchored, 

tied down, sand in my gut,

pouring down down down,
filling me with weight 

from toe to head, from morning

to night, endless and timeless,
the weight of centuries,
over my head, suffocating me,

until all that's left is

a fossil no one can cipher,

though they try to give me flesh

on paper, in models, in murals,

but I'm long g0ne, crushed

by this weight that I could 

never seem to lift.