Skins

(For Holly)

I want to peel off our skins

and hand them across

these ropes of barbed wire.

I will wear you and

you will wear me

like cloaks

so we can move

about hidden as

the thing we are supposed

to dread, and our eyes

would see different worlds

not so very far from our own.

If we could spit out the flavors

of stupidity and hate

from the safety of

the other side of the wall,

slip each other on and

clamor over the fence

into a no-man's land

beyond ignorance and fear -

fear that should be hollow,

ridiculous nothings

except for the lives

it crushes and the ones

torn in two separate,

ragged pieces of

you and me,

and your babies and my

babies, making it impossible

for them to find a way

to find each other.

I want to merge these hues,

this difference,

this otherness,

into a golden Oneness

of every shade

from the inside out

and see with our eyes

where it wounds so deeply

without spilling a single drop

of my own blood

except when it's dripping

from your veins

and taking us away

from each other,

from us,

from everyone.

I want to peel off our skins

and give them to each other

to wear

like life jackets

or survival suits

to keep our beauty

safe from hate

and protect the

hearts beating in our

chests for another day.

© H. Newberry, 2016