(Un)Becoming

Unbecoming

Part I

What is the difference between the past and the present

if I spend my present fearing my past?

What is my future if I spend my present

trying to avoid appearances of my past?

The past creeps to crawl. The future drips,

like a leaky faucet into your present, first unnoticed,

until the future brings you someone of your past

and you are, in an instant, suspended

in a moment of timelessness,

but with the power to influence the past, the present,

and the future all at once, as the gravity of the past

releases its white-knuckled grip and leaves you

void of the acceleration necessary to forge

forward into the future, as your brain’s existential

preoccupation unravels from the time-bound adages of

Who have I been? Who will I become?

into the eye-blinding light of

Who am I, really?

Part II

Though I dare with foolishness to ask the question,

do I have the courageousness to dive, earnestly—

after years of faceless forms, suffocating

in search of my own breath’s rhythm

amongst the heaving waters of life

— into the hunch of truth that lies

in a siren’s song: the head’s break above water,

lungs wide open and raw, gasping for oxygen,

feverish skin delighting in hot sunshine's freedom,

feet treading, treading, treading, the cool ocean waters

with grace, as they battle the aching bellows

of an undertow threatening to pull me under,

like when I looked into your eyes for the second first time

and, with an almost tragic flutter in my chest, realized

I never recovered from your departure—

only learned to live with the ache of your absence.

Becoming

Part I

And should I dare to dive, and strive to come back up for air,

can I stand in the discomfort of contradiction with bravery,

and muster the strength to re-break my own crooked bones

pulling at the thread of fear

that holds the scar-tissued edges of my heart together—

stitches sewn by others unqualified to operate in the first place,

—as I examine the knobby dysfunctions and admit

a much needed reset and casting? For simple fact,

I can no longer live for the acceptance of others

if it comes at the price of rejecting myself.

Part II

The ecstasy of promised reunion with self

is a terrifying, yet thrilling beat to dance to:

the warmth of a Sunday waking, sunlight cast across the velvet duvet.

The smell of coffee brewing, as your half-sleeping love’s voice

cracks with the day’s first words—

Good morning!

Eyes still closed and a kiss with arms

that stretch to find their way around you:

comfort coupled with grief,

very much alive and well in the memories of your cells

secreting cytokine reminders of similar times

you leapt with delight and shattered,

left fallen and scattered on the bathroom floor,

heaving and haphazardly gluing back together

your very own pieces with Elmer’s

into something lopsided— chewed up and spit out—

housing cracks not yet painted gold because they're homing ghosts

that still haunt you with an eerie familiarity of the initial form.

Part III

I must prepare the both of us

for the reckoning that ensues

honest answers to reckless questions,

because once I see, I cannot unsee,

and once I see, thought becomes form,

and function must follow and lead,

or else

remain undifferentiated,

and complacency

is when I will have chosen to die before death:

a self-subjugated purgatory of numbness

as I elect to float face-down in the waters of others

who are okay with visiting my brokenness

and pretending

It’s beautiful!

as long as it does not cause them any inconvenience.