Becoming—

little girl, big girl

school-desk bound

ink pens clicking in my teeth;

among heart-shaped cyclamen leaves

becoming in sunlight

petal pink, leaf to root.

word by word,

I am becoming

not through escaping confusion

but abiding inside it

like confusion is my school-desk

of tattered papers

sometimes it’s all I know

ink pens click, snap,

break, and run dry

in the middle of

poems

my fingers trace old lines

and gouges and paint strains

I am by the window

and nobody’s at my door

I am ready for the girl I’m becoming

but not for the girl who became my memories—

to kill my yesterday self

to see myself in a moment’s forever

that is my dream

retrospective suicide

only the moment matters

believing myself

never split, never broken

like the unbroken birdsong

inside light-rimmed underwater trees

dripping with translucent, unreachable berries.

I am ready for the girl I’m becoming

my ink pen like a knife I wield

cutting, peeling, snipping, ripping

as I unravel

I am not tapestry

I am tangled threads and buttons

and needles

holding together, fragile, fearful

as the mature berry on the twig.

Becoming—

coming undone

all one and the same

all words are like

one.