Stranger in My Own Skin

I come here to flip through the pages of my past

like a stranger in a strange world

a stranger in my own skin

a stranger to my own words.

I come here to gaze at the memories of who I was

to scratch the itch of remembering where I came from

like a stranger in my own pages

reading the words of someone else

living a life of fantasy

like a dream where you look in and say 

"I wish that was me".

Stretched far too thin

I have become a stranger in my own skin

looking in

reading through the pages of my own story

some former kind of glory.

I come to scratch the itch of remembering

where I came from

recalling who I was

to scratch the itch under my skin

like reading a book that someone else wrote

trying to get lost in the fantasies of their mind

amazed that all of these words were once mine.

I have become

a stranger in my own skin

standing on the outside looking in

at what I was and what I have become

the words on these pages, familiar like a stranger's story

read time and time again until they become like a distant memory

of what should be

or what could have been.

My life has become a memory

and so I dip my fingers into the water and watch the ripples roll out 

a moment in time

flipping through these pages wondering in amazement

that this was all mine.

Like staring through the mists into another land

I reach out for that feeling of just

being

and it slips through my fingers as I close my hands around it

a moment of forever in time

captured in words

a fantasy of what I was and what was mine

but I am a stranger here

a stranger to my mind

a stranger to the words on the pages I wrote.

A million tiny expressions of my soul

poured out through my fingertips over the years

like the soft rush of air from my lips 

the firm grip of his hands on my hips

the feeling of chains stretching across my skin

the brutal kiss of the whip

the sensation of my soul drowning in his control.

Standing on the outside looking in

wondering at what is and what could have been.

I look into the mirror and I wonder at the woman looking back at me

eyes of a familiar color

no longer flashing the wild abandon of the lover

no longer reflecting the untamed wilderness of a soul

begging to be chained.

I am now

stretched too thin

standing on the outside looking in

I have become a stranger to the life I used to live

a stranger to the beauty of my own story.

I am

a stranger in my own skin.