A Poem to Sylvia Plath

My soul fears that when a white dress grazes legs once stroked by a stork’s wing, they will

solely fade to porcelain.

My insides scream for fingers to stay away from my lips crafted of ribbon, because my skin

can feel a warning;

they will unravel and never take the same shape again.

How can I guarantee that my eyes stay deep enough so that anyone who enters their sea

drowns, yet my eyes stay closed as their hands sink below the surface?

It feels as if my soul is only allowed to burn

at a distance

from what it longs for.

When will dull masks of social skin appear to the naked eye?

When will the burning motion of hearts be as clear as the movement of a forming tornado in

the sky?

The reality of dreams rotates around my fingers, leading them to paste my invisible thoughts

onto paper.

But when will I see the true color of my skin and bones?

I know I have it in me to scream to the whole world what I feel.

I no longer want to wonder if it will only come out as a whisper.

I cannot tell if I hide from the moon or the moon hides from me.

How do I let my fingers burn, dream, and love all at once as I stand in the fire I have only

admired during its growth?

My beliefs paint my flesh rose-colored, but each time they are questioned they begin to char,

mirroring the black debris of a fire.

I suppose I cannot stay in a cage yet fly free at the same time, but what if the part of my mind

I hate hides the key of my cage from me the moment I jump in the fire just to see if it

truly burns the way my deepest hidden passions do?

At times I convince myself that I feel nothing and that I am nothing.

I do not want to create a mere shadow of myself for others to try on only to find out that they

hate the tight fit of the restrictions my body chains to my heart.

I fear for my dreams to stay isolated inside of me, never breathed in by my own lungs.

I fear that my fingers have the ability to make a birdsong sound like intrusive thoughts,

causing a person wrapped in epiphanies to scream in agony.

How do I rip my skin from a canvas when others choose gray as the color to represent the

arguments resting, contained in the form of water and fire spiraling, behind my eyes?

I am afraid to live, but it is all I do.

I feel my figure slip away each time someone tries to brand it as their own.

But why do my beliefs still believe in me, and why do I feel I can answer that question, but

words will never do it justice as they simultaneously exist as all I have to speak in

order to escape temptations swallowing the hands left at the sea’s surface?

The day my compass shattered was the day my stone feet broke away from what they were

and ran to take any form other than the horrors of living but not moving.

But I am running toward life only to find death greet me with a chokehold and feel its

cold, lifeless fingers around my neck as I speak my last words.

Will I become as invisible as my thoughts when I put myself on paper with no color existing at

first glance?

I fear this poem will never be a poem, and I will watch my own fingers drown deep in my eyes

until they never come back, only existing in utter despair.

Can you hear them slip away?

My screams are silent, but I think that is solely from my perspective.

Do the writers I read reach through me?