I am on a stage.
I am alone; the eldest.
I feel my king’s eyes beyond the light,
the desperate gaze of my poisoned mother.
Their expectations bore into me,
but despite all our rehearsal, I cannot remember.
“What was the question?”
I am in a trap.
A trap for something larger than myself.
— I was only hungry. —
Despite the warm blood,
despite the frostbitten fur,
I am relieved. As hunters gather,
they do not ask anything of me.
What is left to understand about hunger?
I am in an elegy.
And your lamentations for who I was
while trying to survive
fall on deaf ears.
I am in the bathroom, gagging myself.
I am two fingers, strategically crushed in the car door.
I am a handful of unknown pills.
I am stepping into traffic.
I am God and the Machine.
I am Prince and Thief of Mercy.
I am delivering myself.
What was there to understand about me?
I’m not sure. Not much.
I thought, therefore I was.
What was there to misunderstand about me?
Everything.
Your imaginary bereavement
is another failed test
when all I wanted from you
was help to remember.
“What was the question?”