umbilical

My hand lies flat on my thigh.

I sigh into my camouflage,

sinking into the memory of the cave.

“It’s the allegory of the cave, not the memory,”

she corrects me softly, yet righteously.

But I’ve not forgotten freshman philosophy,

or elementary ethics,

or sixth grade English.

I’ve forgotten the names of my imaginary friends,

and how to sing like no one is listening when someone is most certainly listening,

and what I want to be when I grow up.

And so I sink—

into the memory of the cave,

the navel,

my belly button.

I squeeze myself shut and begin to crawl my way back through the umbilical cord,

until I reach home.

The light pouring through the window follows me,

and I slink and slither, worrying the tip of my 7-inch stiletto

will puncture the walls like an IUD.

I long to be barefoot, to tiptoe through the halls,

making no floorboard creak, leaving behind no footprint.

Instead, my heels hit the foundation as Gestapo boots,

and my fingers tracing the wallpaper should mark the way

my fingers tracing rainy car windows once did,

and not slice as scythes.

I want to drown in your blood,

so that for once,

you may breathe.

I want to spread my hand,

connecting the veins of the trees lining the sidewalk.

somewhere is the fig.

somewhere is the willow.

but here are the roots.

right here, where they were planted.

centuries before a bloom was a spoken word,

millennia before it was even a thought.

And that’s how it must have been born:

an action preceding a word preceding a thought preceding a feeling.

and,

That, too, is how I was born.

How we all were. Are.

dazzling, the way the stars suicide just to reincarnate as us.

(If i reincarnate, will I suicide as a star?)

If i suicide, will i reincarnate as the sun?

and is any home true after mother’s womb?