Innermost Selves Poem by Mark Heathcote

Like empty skeletal Russian dolls
casting off their innermost selves
We all wear our snakeskins on the inside.
Deciding on what is best to deceive,
what is best to hide, keep pursed?
And ultimately unrecognised
behind tear-sequined eyes.
We all wear our bruises on the inside.
purple laced moth-eaten tapestries
that ghostly hang and drop their coveralls-
haunting empty corridors, the eyes
of the ones we loved who once loved us.