Museum of Natural Absence

I am the curator of image,

deity of decision,

left with this lone

-s i l h o u e t t e-

after a thousand other

selves were erased

I am what's left of the pieces I refused...

to become anyone,

you must first fail at

becoming countless

others

the art of exclusion:

a game we all play

I am no longer haunted by the doors I never opened

the pilot,

the scientist,

the man who never quite learned

when to say 'yes',

-e x i s t e d- in theory

but are now like distant relatives whose names I cannot recall

I am the curator of image

[deity of self]

a path is not a failure

if it leads to nothing;

it is simply a path

a museum full of exhibits

that faded away

remains a museum

a mirror who refuses

to reflect at all is still

a mirror

i do not mourn what never became

that unfinished portrait is made of empty places

some days I want to sketch something new onto it

but cannot figure out what belongs

*

the lives I've missed have stopped knocking

they were never meant to be lived

they were only meant to shape the man the world knows

today

I am the curator of image [deity of omission]