Unafraid

I am a round baby bounced from knee to adoring knee, a miracle growing older with every bounce, more self-aware, less unafraid. 


I am a broken collage halfway across the room from myself, juggling my disembodied head on my elbows, and with my eyes in my belly button I watch myself slash thick red graffiti on the pulsating walls. 


I am a walnut, present and whole.


I am a drumbeat, wanting here, now, love, truth, yes, why, make it stop, keep the beat. 


Pacing the wooden floors, the memory traps, the what-if labyrinths. Gobbling the air, the dance, the certainties, the chopped-up tomorrows. Make it real. Make it true.


What makes this a person? This body stops the air. This mouth is hungry. This self has tentacles that lick the icy cold, the easy untruth, the painful lonesome. The hard-won solitude. The burst of hallelujah. Again the icy cold.


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