POETRY
Peeling off layers.
Words by Hannah Hayden & illustration by Olivia Domingos
I have traded every limb for silence.
Instead of photographs, my pasts are cast
in scaly sheaths,
I dance for weeks at a time
before dying in another silk
and the warm-blooded,
wrapped in dead blankets,
with pelt stretched
over a whole life,
to me it is not right
but
don’t they love things that always are?
and isn’t that how it always is?
the endurance of a hide
before being found:
he claws out the muscle and rips off the skin
scouring for source
I do not even remember my maiden name,
nor the pattern of the scales on her back—
But I can leave my hides behind,
rushing over grass,
in my strange ulterior dance
or
bolt like a blunt knife,
dropping another negligee
but not revealing
that I too coil in fear
to sleep, alone, in a sacral knot.
Hannah Hayden is a writer based out of the eighth circle of hell. She takes delight in singing, the baroque, and the colour yellow. She is currently finding her personal brand and aspires to one day have a Wikipedia page.