Self Discovery

i.

Heart beating in a crowd of strangers,

my father reassures me,

the ocean wakes up every morning

to pursue the soil. I picture the sun,

unpeeling green mountains,

and I think to cut a piece of the sky for myself.

 

If not me, who?

 

ii.

Skin atop skin, a size I can't

peel off. I teach myself to never be satisfied,

to keep fingers fidgeting, picking

at loose ends that will never be silk.

 

Instead, I take up space. My skin

is my birthright, after all. I try on paintings

meant for walls. I only look good in the dark,

I know, but I try on the light, conjure new wardrobes.

 

Kerosene shivers beneath my tongue.

Immediately, I think I've met my match.

 

iii.

Mind on the wind, I dream to

sip defiance and breathe tobacco-scented air,

a relic of nobody's.

 

Somewhere, rain drips where it hasn't touched in years.

 

I'm taught to be risk averse,

to whisper Amen only on my deathbed.

I can only wonder which gods to plead to for help.

 

Blasphemy, a word upon my father's lips.

 

iv.

What is to become of me?

I don't think I'll be here for long.

But I'll wait, keep fires burning,

invent a breed of patient combustion.

 

I'm made of atoms small enough to be nonsense,

and I tear them away to feel something.

I laugh with my head back, like they do

in cartoons.

 

Write to the author of your own biography.

I decide I must.

History is written by the victors,

and so let it be known,

I'll be the man with two pens in hand.