A bath.

I scoured off my tired skin
In search of what was left within
And peeling off, while all alone
I came to see my pale, white bones.

Though stained with blood, and laced with veins
They made me feel brand new again
So rattling up against the tub,
my new outsides I soaped and scrubbed!

My brain held up inside my skull
reeled back with freshened notions
while spindly hands wrung out old flesh
to make a scarlet potion.

I wondered what, now without skin
my life might prove to be?
No pinkened suit to stake my place
here in society.

No widened smile or locks of hair
no curves or darting eyes
I wondered if, with just a mind,
my framework could survive?

Would thoughts alone be quite enough
to sustain and see me through?
What if, with nothing but dried limbs
I found this hope untrue?

With little left, but scaffolding
to brace me through my days,
would the life lead by a skeleton
be worth one single page?

Out of the bath I clanked and clonked
to dry my porus frame
like fingernails down chalkboard,
towel to sternum, felt the same.

Then looking deep into  the glass
new portrait in full sight,
I saw two dots, my own dark eyes
reflect the bathroom light.

Goodbye old form! Fears, drain away!
I have been washed anew!
My eyes, the windows to my soul
have endured; and been found true.