Written for the game Snap Shot, Writing Prompt #19

 

There’s a forest in my skin.
It’s not a dark place, not a light place
There’s a forest in my skin
The veins that wind their cobbled ways
Along the contours of my age
There’s a forest in my skin
The ground beneath is cracked and worn
The ground it hums and caresses warm
This is the place where life is born
There’s a forest in my skin
The trees that grow are not of wood
They steady rise, as good trees should
But their roots, down through the mud
Holding me silently where I stood
Daphne’s tears now understood
There’s a forest in my skin
Immortal not for forests blaze
Another world with numbered days
Beauty in its silent praise
There’s a forest in my skin
Beasts and beasties walk my floor
And I’m not certain anymore
Once I was proud but now I abhor
There’s a forest in my skin
A thousand years might come and go
Winter sun and summer snow
Until the world is long ago
To forever weep and never grow
There’s a forest in my skin
Waking now and stiffness thrown
Trading shrubs for skin and bone
I wished it gone but now I’m alone
There’s no forest in my skin.