Cutting Through the Five Elements of the Body

In hopes of discovering the five elements of my existence

I extend one arm like a branch of a diseased tree

Ready to be dissected

The other takes in hand a razor blade

Carver’s tool

Archaeologist’s weapon

Maneuvering between the lines of demarcation

The scarred flesh, landmarks of my previous excavations

Breaking through the outer layer of defense

Pressing ever downward

I cut through the earth

The layers of my skin form such a vulnerable protection

Below is the smell of dirt, the dank, the rot

Where worms slither and rust grows rampant

Bad dreams remain and haunt the shadows

Trembling words echo in the fetid soil

Each timbre, cadence, tone

You can feel it

You can feel it

I cut through air

Vast pockets of emptiness

Swollen with resignation

Escape through the fissures

Whipping the stillness into violence

I try to release the pressure

But it keeps building and I cannot breathe

I cut through the water

Waves of destruction

Blood tides of raging waters

Violently boil and churn

Staining everything they touch

And they touch everything

Nothing is safe

Nothing is beyond reach

Each moment of pain and memory

Never washes out to sea

Sweltering and clinging as it flows

Until the cold sets in

Leaving me feeling desolate and barren

I cut through the fire

This eternal flame

That burns my center

With self-hatred, rage, disappointment

So I can destroy those that love me

Cancel their future and mine

I cut through the aether

This well where true darkness resides

Here there is no artifice

Only the naked self

The unadorned truth

Pulling back the curtain to reveal

The purity of my existence

Full of shame and despair

The blackness has form and space

And yet is as intangible as thought or feeling

I cut

I bleed

I cry

I mourn

I live to see another day