Puzzled.


What does it feel like?
Not quite homesick.
Not quite heartache.
Whatever it is, it’s me-shaped.

Your thoughts of me are swirling smoke,
once visions of my face,
liable to dissipate.
Still your hands can trace my form,
and it’s been that way 
since you came to know it.

Here in the time we share 
from our separate spaces, 
we pulse the same.

The shape of me in you
is liable to become misshapen.

do you like it? 
the part of you that looks like me? 

If so,
please slow.
If not, 
please press
this fern into a fossil 
and put my print up on the shelf. 

Find rest.

Time has plundered-
deep parts of me, crude chunks of me, tangled parts of me, 
coiled yanked then blended up.
So much time time’s spent scraping.
The mess can be difficult to discern.

But when I squint I think it looks like you more and more.

So, sure, I too can say it’s been much “worse”
when gauging any given day.
But is that any way 
to measure its state?
(I often wonder at this.)

I am relentless 
I am full of grace 
I smile while I say 
I can’t wait 
to know the good that awaits.
To savor each course, each plate.

Isn’t it funny?
How the thief we call Time 
is the same man that set the stage 
for all that was 
and is 
and ever will be,
of which then he takes?

Perhaps he has the right to take.
The players have weight in this game.

Distain. A bitter taste. Recoiling. Contorting of the face. Rancid. 
disillusioning, this “living”-thing.

Humans are a travesty.
I love rock hunting.

My pockets are heavy, 
and my laughter is light.
My ferns and displaced teeth 
all the little things 
the imprints of my joys and sufferings:
they mean something to me. 

I decided to keep smiling,
a long time ago.
 
Do you like the parts of me that look like you? 
Do you like what I’ve done with the place?


Δηλία 01.2025