Adapt Or Die

Adapt or Die


You say adapt or die
but I don't want your cockroach shell.
It’s cold and dark and callous
and impenetrable.

You used to be slow and awkward.
I liked that.
But now you move so quickly
that I can hardly make out your edges;
they seem so undefined.

I may be clumpy, and conspicuous,
but you, you travel so lightly that your footprints barely mark.
Soon you’ll sprout silent feathers and leave no tread at all.

So I grow wonky, and it makes it hard to balance,
Well I’m stronger than you think,
and I manage.

While you’ve developed sandpaper hands
to navigate these rough walls,
my fingers are still fragile, wrapped in peach skin,
which will shrivel when I get old.
But they’re soft.
You’d know if you’d let me touch you.

But nobody can touch you.

Nobody can crawl inside
or feel down your back to check for your spine.
Nobody can scratch beneath the surface
to make sure that, if cut, you still bleed.

You’ve peeled back your skin so many times,
and like a pass the parcel, each time you get smaller.
Soon there’ll be nothing left, but the smell of black ink on kid’s fingers.
And you tell me adapt or die?

Don’t you see that you’ve already died?
And this shell has grown back in your place,
this tiny, hollow shell.
Maybe I’m wrong and it’s not hollow but watertight.
Perhaps that’s even worse.

Because I don’t want to live cold and dark and callous
I like my peach skin and how I bruise and tear

I would rather die than be re-cast like you.