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metamorphosis, obscured
my father is a child, my mother's fourth
and yet as he leans over,
in his scalp, the roots of his hair,
his balding patch has thinned his king's crown
my mother's face has begun to look less like her own
she resembles her mother,
as i resemble mine. i stare at all three
and time stares back through the walls of a lived-in home,
eating away
our home is dirty,
its floors dirtier, holding the intermingled parts of ourselves in its crevices
i endure the layers of dirt stuck to the bottom of my feet
dead skin and shed hair, a creation of the time having gotten to know ourselves only through impressions of each other's husks,
is it of decomposition or a metamorphosis?
a creation,
how much of its dirt is of a mother's and father's?
there is someone waiting inside of the crevices
of me,
their name kept neat underneath my tongue,
their dead skin and hair obscured and entrapped,
underneath my fingernails
with scratch marks gone through layers of dirt,
a creation
for whom neither a mother or father will have the pleasure of time given
so when my husk leans back to slip away, through the dirt, into the crevices of our floors
when rigor has not yet set in,
will they have known whether it was decomposition or metamorphosis i had succumbed to?
will they see time staring back, still, through the floors of a lived-in home,
eating away?
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The fear of change and transition, and yet the longing that comes along with it for the will to allow yourself change. The fear of the passage of time and its keepsakes left behind in a home as physical reminders of it. Time—one to never stop for anyone anywhere along its course, left undeterred.
The acquaintanceship between family having gotten to know only a thinly-veiled husk of a genuine self inside of you. The fear of expressing your core self and who it feels as though you "need to be" to family. Thin layers of "dirt" found only just in the crevices of relationships, almost inperceptible yet no less hindering who you feel you can be. Being a closeted queer person sharing living space with family, growing in hiding. Watching time pass you by as those around you grow older, running out of time, yet fearing the ways in which your changes might be percieved.
The idea of the core self clawing its way out, and its husk dying. Decay and death, rebirth and life through time—because we can only keep living.