Under skin

A forgetful optimist questions
everything, hoping that the future
will provide an encouraging answer
his brain refuses to surface.

What memories linger, hidden
under a skull and time-worn skin,
lost among dreams
he neglected too long, too long

until skin dries and withers —
black and white photos become sepia
become something unrecognizable
even to those we love.

The optimist knows the sun will rise
tomorrow, even as the irony of
light shining on a mind gone dark
flies over his head, skin and all.


© 2021 | Phillip Knight Scott

Prompts:

  • Your Daily Word Prompt: Anomaly – #YDWordPrompt 
  • Word of the Day Challenge: Forgetful
  • New2Writing #writephoto: Skulls
  • Sammi’s Weekend Writing Prompt #232: Question

Skulls – Image by KL Caley

Published by Phillip Knight Scott

My name is Phillip. I am a Tar Heel born and bred and watch every Yankees game I can. I'm still searching for my own TARDIS. My first novel, "The Alien in the Backseat," is available now! https://amzn.to/3oVCG77

6 thoughts on “Under skin

Leave a Reply to Jemima Pett Cancel reply

Fill in your details below or click an icon to log in:

WordPress.com Logo

You are commenting using your WordPress.com account. Log Out /  Change )

Facebook photo

You are commenting using your Facebook account. Log Out /  Change )

Connecting to %s

%d bloggers like this: