The premise for this poem – rebirth – was spawned from some life challenges
I’d been dealing with last year. It’s a personal clarion call, cautionary tale,
and celebration all in one.
Photo by Greg Rakozy on Unsplash
Redefine
Like a hibernating reptile, I dwelled dormant
in the ship’s corrective couch,
a lightless cocoon
of vivid dreamscapes and hallucinations,
coalescing and dissolving
like order and chaos battling for
supremacy in the maelstrom of my mind.
Lucidity had long since abandoned me
in that primordial bath of proteins and amino acids,
where I clung to
the tattered remnant of my coherence:
the regimen’s final leg.
In my artificial womb of regrowth,
nanochines and IV cocktails
flooded my bloodstream periodically,
slowly altering my body’s chemistry
down to the cellular level,
redefining my biology.
The more I grew accustomed
to the foreign agents,
the more I welcomed
the metamorphosis taking place.
I felt my soft skin hardening;
like scar tissue it puckered in ridges and knots.
Rows of neuromasts sprouted
throughout my midsection,
making my aquatic confines
a path of navigable convenience.
My eyes withered, fell out,
and in their pits
grew gossamer strands of sensory cilium
and the gift of ubiquitous sight.
I pulled the oxygen mask from my mouth,
allowing my lungs
to drink in new possibilities
that passed through newly grown branchia
at the pits of my arms.
My lumbering skeletal structure slowly dissolved,
allowing me to
bend instead of breaking.
Paddle-shaped appendages framed in cartilage
grew from the backs of my arms, legs, and shoulders
as nictitating membranes enveloped my orifices.
A massive panel slowly contracted,
exposing the inky exterior of space.
That vista unearthed a deep-seated anxiety
I’d repressed for a lifetime.
The astronomer in me yearned to
ply my trade hands-on,
unburdened by my baseline anatomy.
As the glass encasement suddenly liquified,
I tasted the hard vacuum,
reveled in its familiarity,
and rode galactic winds
through my promising new workspace.
by Andrew Leonard
Andrew Leonard is a married father of three – one human and two golden doodles – residing in Illinois. His speculative work has appeared in Utopia Science Fiction Magazine, Andromeda Spaceways, Sci-Fi Shorts, and Crepuscular. In his spare time, Andrew is a lembas-munching, spice-addicted, bloodydamn howler hunting the Great Other.
