X-Ray Vision

I see myself from the inside out

veins stretched like roots,

smile blooming during a downpour of pain,

feet planted firmly upside down.

But I forgot how to look

how to see with someone else's eyes.

I strip my skeleton of meat

to stand raw face to face with

the reflection strangers sculpt of me.

Do they think I’m the one that's strange?

Spread open too wide for comfort?

Am I a collapsed cathedral of clutter from the outside?

Selfish? Elastic? Undone?

But maybe I’m just lucky,

adrift inside the fever dream of forgetting,

a hum of ignorance curled warm around me.

Is that bliss?

Camouflage?

Or both?