Envelope

Shame is an envelope licked, sealed
and stamped, Our destination
written on the front, but our life
keeps being sent back to the return address
written in our childhood scrawl.

We are folded inside, many pages thick,
written in obsolete font of a typewriter
that lost its ribbon twenty-five years ago.

This is the message on the surface,
so old it has seeped into our cells,
hiding the fine script of our origin,
our true self in love with grace.

The message is written in invisible ink,
waiting for sunlight to appear.