Thoughts like cigarette smoke & ash like a memory

 

These late nights filled with

starlight and cigarette smoke

stretch my soul thin with journals highlighting my

lengthening state of longing.

I want so badly to hold this together,

like puzzle pieces that aren’t properly paired–

overlayed edges

grasped with super glue and scotch tape

so I can still look at a picture that–

despite its failed alignment

is still found to be observable

even if only through abstract details.

Ash on my jeans like a memory

I want to trap in this moment for an eternity.

I don’t want to lose anything held by my skin,

or in a grass stain.

Every wrinkle, every mark

is another piece that makes me

                   me

I fear that eventually

I will lose parts of myself,

like surf gone quiet

or ripples in a pond that fade.

People spend lifetimes chasing the hope of reinvention

or the removal of scars like questionable moles.

Minds greater than I have spent years

chasing the answer to the question

“What makes you, you?

The soul?

skin?

       face?

   memory?

let me hold onto it all

collect those part of me in pieces.

I’m okay with letting old wounds hibernate themselves

as silent creatures festering in my mind

because sometimes I question who I could ever be

without them

without their pain.