When We Went Through

We left our masks at the door —

Masks of norms, masks of respectability,

Each mask stamped from one of several molds

So each of us seemed one of many

We left our cloaks at the door —

Cloaks that hid 

our light-charged ascent,

our streaming brilliance,

our quick-electric connecting essence

And we abandoned all our static stories —

Histories that marked our limits,

all the tags, the terms, the titles

all that would excuse, explain

why we were so hemmed in

And all the habits,

all the ways we framed ourselves

(and had been  framed)

all the things we named ourselves

(or how we'd been misnamed)

everything we had condemned,

self-condemnation, too —

We left all that behind

when we went through.

©Wendy Mulhern

November 18, 2014