I Want to Be the Girl With Antlers

ode to Ansel Elkins

I want to be the girl with antlers.

To walk through that pine wood
Wearing nothing but my crown of bone branches
Kneel before the pond in reverence 
And see my own tattered reflection staring back.

I want to call back the pieces of my soul,
Fragmented through life and time,
Each cast a little further with the utterance 
of that cursed word “should.”

I’ll catch them in the memory of the stars shining overhead,
Silver fireflies perched atop my prongs
A constellation of divine light
Waiting to dissolve on my tongue. 

By the light of my birth mother 
I’ll dip my hands into that shimmering pool 
And let the water baptize me, 
A creature indefinable, monstrous, and holy.

When the drops have shaken from my naked skin
And the pool is a mirror once more before me
I’ll meet my own eye, and whisper the words of that precious spell,
You are fearfully and wonderfully made.

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