Bones of Beasts

Sometimes I wake up and it feels like I am borrowed

Like the breath in my lungs is on loan for tomorrow

Like I slipped into a life that was meant for someone else

And I am just pretending I know how to be myself

There is a tremor under everything I do

Like a storm that never quite breaks through

I smile and talk and move the way I think I should

But I keep wondering if I am doing any good

If I am here for a reason I cannot see

Why does it feel like the reason is watching me

I have a quiet animal under my ribs

Pacing in circles with every breath I give

It does not speak but it pulls on my bones

Every time I try to make myself a home

If I was made for something more than this

Why does every answer vanish when I reach for it

If I am not what the world is asking me for

Then what am I still here for

Some days I feel lighter than my name

Like I could step right out of every frame

Like I am nothing but a flicker in the dark

Waiting for a hand to prove I left a mark

Some nights I am heavy as the sky

Every thought is just another why

Why this heart why this face why this time

Why this restless tide I cannot redefine

If there is meaning hiding in my skin

Why do I feel like I am looking in

I have a quiet animal under my ribs

Pacing in circles with every breath I give

It claws the walls when I call myself small

When I bend my shape to fit inside it all

If I was made for something I cannot name

Why does every day feel somehow the same

If I am not what the silence is searching me for

Then what am I still here for

What if all this trembling is not wrong

What if I was never meant to be that strong

What if I could lay my armor on the floor

And still be worth existing for

What if every question that I cannot define

Is just the way this animal and I align

What if being lost is part of being real

And not every wound was made to heal

I have a quiet animal under my ribs

Learning to live with the life that I live

Maybe I am more than the roles I perform

More than the way I survive every storm

If I was made for a truth I cannot yet see

Maybe that truth has always been in me

If I am not what the world is asking me for

Maybe that is what I am still here for

I place my hand on my beating chest

And try to love whatever’s left