Poem: "ssessu"
This poem was prompted and sponsored by minor_architect. It's all about what a former shifter misses.
ssessu
hssaa
is the sound of skin shedding
and the emotion of the snake shedding the skin:
it-feels-so-good-to-get-this-off.
As a shifter, I have known
as many emotions
as I have skins, and many more.
mrau, the cats’ name for the moon,
is also the name of the mystical mood that comes with it -
I-am-contemplating-the-enigmas-of-the-universe-by-moonlight -
for to view the moon through the eyes of a cat
is to sense mysteries that reveal themselves only via that lens.
ffa … huu
is a word all shifters love,
the dolphins’ word for spouting after a long dive
and that feeling of release and refreshment,
blowing-out-the-old-breath-and-breathing-in-the-new,
and they use it for talking about relationships too,
which I think is why dolphin romances are such strange stories.
kree
is the gleam of sunbeams weaving through the ultraviolet vanes
of a hummingbird’s feathers, not only during display but all the time,
and the boldness that goes with it, bright and rich and nimble:
I-am-so-adroit-you-will-never-catch-me-no-matter-how-easy-I-am-to-see.
In that word is a hummingbird’s whole awareness of the world
but in human form I can hardly recall what it was like
to be such a jewel falling through a jar of honey.
There is danger in the world
as well as beauty,
and those who love to take what others hold
do not care about the damage they do.
This is the rhythm of a horse’s hooves, cantering,
hakoka, hakoka, hakoka
and the bodyfeel of speed and the glee of it,
running-between-wind-and-earth.
But I was not fast enough.
The skinhunters shot me down
and stripped the mystical skin from my body,
leaving me beached on my human bones
forever beyond reach of the tide.
Those emotions are lost to me now,
as surely as the shapes that gave them:
I can remember feeling them all,
but I can no longer feel them,
except for one.
I need to shed my skin,
but it won’t come off.
Snakes have a word for this, too,
the emotion of soul-itching-for-change-when-skin-is-stuck:
ssessu.
ssessu
hssaa
is the sound of skin shedding
and the emotion of the snake shedding the skin:
it-feels-so-good-to-get-this-off.
As a shifter, I have known
as many emotions
as I have skins, and many more.
mrau, the cats’ name for the moon,
is also the name of the mystical mood that comes with it -
I-am-contemplating-the-enigmas-of-the-universe-by-moonlight -
for to view the moon through the eyes of a cat
is to sense mysteries that reveal themselves only via that lens.
ffa … huu
is a word all shifters love,
the dolphins’ word for spouting after a long dive
and that feeling of release and refreshment,
blowing-out-the-old-breath-and-breathing-in-the-new,
and they use it for talking about relationships too,
which I think is why dolphin romances are such strange stories.
kree
is the gleam of sunbeams weaving through the ultraviolet vanes
of a hummingbird’s feathers, not only during display but all the time,
and the boldness that goes with it, bright and rich and nimble:
I-am-so-adroit-you-will-never-catch-me-no-matter-how-easy-I-am-to-see.
In that word is a hummingbird’s whole awareness of the world
but in human form I can hardly recall what it was like
to be such a jewel falling through a jar of honey.
There is danger in the world
as well as beauty,
and those who love to take what others hold
do not care about the damage they do.
This is the rhythm of a horse’s hooves, cantering,
hakoka, hakoka, hakoka
and the bodyfeel of speed and the glee of it,
running-between-wind-and-earth.
But I was not fast enough.
The skinhunters shot me down
and stripped the mystical skin from my body,
leaving me beached on my human bones
forever beyond reach of the tide.
Those emotions are lost to me now,
as surely as the shapes that gave them:
I can remember feeling them all,
but I can no longer feel them,
except for one.
I need to shed my skin,
but it won’t come off.
Snakes have a word for this, too,
the emotion of soul-itching-for-change-when-skin-is-stuck:
ssessu.