Scales

Jagged memories the kind you handle carefully

Or not at all,

Lest they claw their way through

The corridors of your mind

With all those telling pin pricks of blood.

Thoughts intruding at cruelest hours

Syphoning off what was left of your spirit.

Shed them all peel them off

Scrape them from reluctant skin,

Cutting scales from skin grown accustomed.

Trading all loneliness for solitude

And all grief for joy,

Goodness earned through strife

Is a high price to pay

But not to is much higher.

– Vagabond Prophet