I’ve been,
Crawling,
Under the dirt,
Upon my abdomen.
Searching,
For the tree,
That I will hang from
And be set free.

This skin I wear
Encases me.
When I’ve moulted.
I will be free.
I will wiggle off the confounds
Of bone and flesh
Of space and time
And of birth and death.

I was once
A nymph.
Living on the roots,
Of the tree above me.
I was so small and hungry then,
But I have eaten enough now.
It is time to harden,
This old soft skin.

I’m passing through,
This knot,
In the infinite,
Line of life.
Aligning myself with the inner body.
Squirming out of this old biology.
Going beyond our senses,
And beyond our imaginations.

Cicada.
That inner beauty is shining through,
Becoming the apparatus that moves you.
Cicada.
Listen to the rhythm of your beating wings,
In tune to when the mother sings.
Cicada.
Break this skin,
Seventeen,
In the making.

Am I,
An island encased in a bag of skin?
Or am I,
The entirety of the ocean?
Am I,
An isolated ray of sunshine?
Or am I,
The source of the sun?
Am I,
An insignificant speck on a spinning ball?
Or am I,
Something a whole lot more?

I am, I am.
I am all that I am.

Tricked yourself long ago,
The joke of the speck
Stuck to a sphere,
Spinning out to nowhere.
This body is an egg,
That encapsulates me,
Soon it will hatch,
And set me free.

We are all nymphs,
Seventeen in the making.
Come and crawl with me,
Get down on your abdomen.
We are all going to climb the tree,
And disappear into seventeen again.