WHEN WILL I SEE #poetry by jay

I ask myself to batch it all up 
and let go
float the raft down the river
and watch it wash up later
downwind

stop pretending this doesn’t exist
and face the truth 
when will I see that it was part of my 
skin 

all the wounds
all the lines
all the ugly spots—

I chose to ignore

I try, I do—

but, however I parse it out
I lose in the end
the meaning—

of why 
I tried again, 
at all.

©Jay Mora-Shihadeh

Photo by Hamza NOUASRIA on Unsplash