A boy with a horrible name
which he might have deserved
had a l(ord)ion tell him that to get better
it would hurt but he had to peel it off.
Layer by layer.
Peel off the scales of greed
of vanity
jealousy
temper
Peel it off
And rise again from the water
still broken and frail
still starving and pale
Peel it off.
Don’t you wish you could peel it off?
Peel off yesterday’s angry words
and make them sink into a pool of forgetting?
Peel off age-old, unforgiven hurts
and drop them into burning redemption?
Nobody wants to be a dragon with a hurting wrist.
I’ve often wished since reading that scene as a child that I could just lie down and let someone rip all my baggage away, even if it felt like claws sinking into my heart. The imagery of that scene was very powerful to me. Nice poem.