i find myself in the ashes of an outgrown morning, daybreak yawning. here's how to pick up the pieces & put yourself back together. let second chances slip through the cracks of your skin. follow the paths burned into the underbellies of a leaf like wrinkles in palms; this, this is how to know yourself. this is how to mark mystery to memory. to become.
in the cusp of seasons i unravel. i do not know the end of this story or who i will be. can you remember a part of you that was never there? is the end really the end if you never started to love yourself in the first place? & in empty space, i write the syllables of my name for someone to find.
my mother used to press my fingerprints on mirror. i do not know myself, i had confessed. like under-ripened grapefruit, she made me unfold my skin & peel it back: do you see yourself? chapped lips placed against a chalice until my reflection spilled out of me. you cannot know something that hides from you.
& in silence, i think of my hands holding each other, strangers to themselves.
