You Still You – Poem

A new beginning, a shedding skin.

The sun is close and intimate
like a fireplace.
An ignited blaze
in a cabin, stacked like Lincoln Logs on my bedroom floor.
A delightfully creaky cabin, surrounded by pines that stretch out the sky,
I stretch my scarred hands wide.
We point past the clouds; may he bring us the truth…

But the clouds shed too.

Delicate white dots, like flowering jasmine stars,
they fall in your hair, as you tell me this is the first time you’ve seen snow fall.
I haven’t told you the story yet.
A story about a story,
One that I wrote.

I was in second grade,
and there was a contest with a group of actors and a play and,
I wrote about one winter in California.
Somehow in my backyard
in a city in the middle of a valley,
there was snow.
A silly miracle,
and mom got the hot cocoa.

And I wrote that story like my family wasn’t ever going to fall apart.
Leave me like a shedding skin.

I have accomplishments,
I play to win.
The tournaments, the scholarships.
I’ve tutored kids on the spectrum,
I’ve performed for the dorms, and the larger forlorned,
but this itself is a skin, that will shed.

If you replace every part of yourself with a new part, are you still you?

I’m still, the kid hiding in the closet when things got violent.
I’m still, the teen who cried and had panic attacks in the group home.
I’m still, an endless progress, a constant learner, and one who makes mistakes.

I look to God, and ask him sincerely:
"Is the illusion of moving forward, masked by all the running away?"

He tells me,
“This is a story about a story.
One that you wrote.
Embers too hot,
snow too cold.
Let go of your skin,
I love you, and I will not let you go.”

Thanks for Reading ~ Erickson

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