Boo Radley

Dungeon-dweller, come up the stairs

Open the windows, for the light, for the air

Your jailers have gone away, taking their locks and bars

All that's left is the trick they played on your mind

Force-feeding you shame until you felt unworthy of liberty

You are accustomed to imprisonment after all this time

Anything else feels terribly strange now

You must sacrifice the comfort of familiarity

for the freedom of change now

Reach for it, move towards it

Consciousness, hiding in the attic of the brain, come down the stairs

Inhabit the body again, a refugee returning home

the muscles have atrophied, the bones creak

you can only crawl, only creep

fearful to be again in this place that was so unsafe

Afraid of the land-mines left behind

years after the peace treaty was signed

But this is your place if you only claim it

Plant your flag and begin to clear wreckage

Plant your crops and begin to hope again

believe in your own bountiful harvest

What is this strange tingling all over my skin?

It is the sunlight, remember?

Remember, or if you can't, just start over from the beginning

It's okay to cry like a baby who has just been pushed from the womb

Just don't go back

You have grown large and strong

There is no longer any reason to hide

Anna J Michener

June 9, 2013