The Liminal: The Hallway

The Liminal: The Hallway
By Kathryn Chupp

With my regalia and charted course—“Pride and false Joy!”
I strode across the space between two doors
but found the next, locked; and the last, slammed;
and I, stuck in the hallway between dreams.

I sat on its tufted and tear-washed carpet— “Soggy!”
and peeled off my weighty fabrics and facades.
There, my discarded decomposed;
I took a deeper breath of muggy air.

I yelled at its once-white walls—“You smell like burned toast!”
A lone window’s starched sunlight had scarred them
with smoke stains, swirled like stormy sea clouds.
I tacked up my fears there. They, too, burned and evaporated.

I waited for the next door to unlock— “Thunk!”
then thanked my hallway, for its soggy carpet
and searing sunlight, for its stripping of my old skins
so I can now enter new spaces naked and complete.