Vital

palms caked in dried clay

the self-isolation had changed me in such a

- gentle but brutal way

to the point I was unsure if I shined like shards of broken glass

or a round cut diamond

the dirty mirror would shift and change my reality 

my clothes either clung onto or swallowed me

even with salty tears cascading down my flushed face,

I couldn't decide if it was sadness that I really felt

Every bookcase opened to reveal secret staircases

and cluttered old studies and libraries,

decades worth of mental degradation and lashing out internally

with a slow process of altering all my thoughts and memories

I had left finger prints on my own soul,

trying to resolve what someone else started

and those prints eventually became claw marks 

from the piercing of the already decaying surface

"you tried but you shouldn't have", I said

"you know better than to touch wet clay;

you were unfinished but you were going to the flames,

earning that hard thick outer skin that everyone praises"

"but you just couldn't wait for the process of healing in that kiln

you dipped your toes into shallow ponds 

and shook hands that once destroyed you

and look what you have done, far worse than where we started"