the warehouse

like boxes of faded
photos or piles
of old newspapers
our bodies
are storehouses—
they hold on to fears
hurts and rejections
layer upon layer
and hide them
in recesses

residues separate
we’ve lost the links
and can no longer
parse them
but the slumbering
mass snares us
the stories have fled
but they still grip hard
a saw-toothed trap

until we invite them
are willing to greet
these old hurts
feel them down
to the bone—then
watch them dissolve
into simple sensation
and they’re gone

2023 ©Amrita Skye Blaine
I’m writing a poem a day. These are drafts—not final versions.