I can feel my old skin

Shedding and

Sloughing into something

Unknown and obscure

Yet, ablaze and assured.

The zebra membrane marbles,

Unable to resolve

This ambivalent maze.

Boundaries blur between

Old, current and altered selves.

The ego of distant pasts 

Hoards and holds tightly

To the weak certainties

And polished identities.

The time-worn enamel sheds

and sticks to the flayed membrane,

Afraid of dissolution,

Of memory loss and rejection.

The new flesh exposed and unsure

Is half chrysalis, half hatched;

Coerced to come into 

But shy to impose its being.

The worn out gives rise to 

The young yet older,

Intrinsically part of it, 

And still, not completely.

New realities arise and

Insecurities ground them

By fears of forgetting,

Of unrecognized anthems.

What if the old habitat

was better than the new?

What if of all versions,

Only one was true?