"Effigy"

"I have fashioned myself an effigy,
With eyes that have never wept,
And lips that have uttered no sorrow.

When the world comes calling, I offer my name and all my laughter,
While beneath her I remain,
Still aching, remembering.

A thousand times I've bathed this skin,
Till the sage bath has grown cold,
and old with sorrow.
Yet my skin stays pruned with wounds,
that cling.

For grief has learned my body well.
It knows the hollows of my chest,
The sharp ache beneath my ribs,
And the places these hands cannot reach.

I've grown tired of washing,
Tired of waking in this same old skin."

- Sanitè

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