Transformation

Transformation

Transformation is not about butterflies

flitting about, capturing our awe.

It is the heart of pain

you cannot feel for me.

Searing cauterization,

what would be condemned

as unethical treatment

of secret wounds

bound up in tattered consciousness.

Bit by bit, then all at once

losing the thread,

spacing out the conversation

not quite catching the gist of 

why I am here and now.

Did it ever make sense?

How could I believe my lies?

That papier-mache world

I gave my soul

sucked dry

in enduring service

was never true.

I would cry

but that would be too easy.

The pain would dribble down;

fascinated by the rainbow glisten

I would count my misfortunes

watch them spin

pennies falling into a rose-glass jar.

Filled with resolve,

I would go back out into the fray,

fight another day, and another

until by decimating degrees

I might fall defeated, dead and gone.

But death is only an act

of transformation.

The whole play depends upon

the spinning out of the tale.

First you love, then you lose,

then you do hard labor

stoking the fires of Hell,

breaking the rocks of Eternity,

cleaning the rotting sewers

of collective untreated waste.

Stench, pain, nausea

beyond bearability

wrenches, renders, discorporates

transforms.

Not like changing 

into a bright, enchanting costume.

Changing utterly

because no other choice

exists.