My Dress


I wore a dress everyday
It was not through poverty or cost
Nor laziness, nor illness
I was still and momentarily lost

The doors were locked
Yet my mind was not
The world had stilled you see
Through illness, confusion and loss
Dead inside, I did not much care a lot.

You see, I found time
Or was it, that it found me
Together we formed a plan
Daily rituals became as one
Time, my dress and me.

My dress became my inner self
I wore my insides out
Stripped bare of needing
I found I needed less.
The more I thought, the less came out.

My dress became a cloak
Of invisibility I dreamed
Ghostlike I roamed 
An armor of fabric held fast against the world
My imagination perhaps was not all it seemed.

I fell in love with my dress
It anchored me to myself.
I felt safe, a friend, an acquaintance of old
And as I crept out from behind my facade
My dress, I kept, a reminder of my true self.