NaPoWriMo Day #18

Today's prompt: "Today, we’d like to challenge you to write a poem in which the speaker expresses the desire to be someone or something else, and explains why."

Perennial

I dream of a perennial soul.

Each death, 

by colliding 

cars or failing 

heart

carries me across the river into the next life.

I wash up on the banks a dewy-soft babe,

the clay of my body remolded.

The cycle goes on in that uncharted land:

Bud to blossom to wither to decay.

Snow falls. I rest for a moment in oblivion,

dormant and cradled by the soil-like dark.

When spring comes,

I bloom anew.

Each life, 

new body, new trappings, new people to surround me,

but the roots remain.

My soul gathers experiences as laurel wreaths on a splendid tree.

Infinite chances to make something of myself.

Infinite chances to do what I never quite have the courage to.

The wreaths become chains.

I am not perennial.

I have one chance to bloom—

I will make this garden my home.