i.
find me
shedding away layers of skin
like leaves — like cracking tree barks
until i am a cold corpse preserved in the winter.
until i am what nature calls dead.
so long each restless movement,
so long, each ugly mark
so long, each metaphor stitched together
into a sorry imitation of poetry.

ii.
find me
shedding away layers of skin
a until i am a hundred sorrows thinner,
— a thousand sighs lighter:
a sorry imitation of a chrysalis breaking
and out emerges an anomaly
aching down to its very bones,
so long, each fleeing breath
so long, each exit wound.

iii.
find me
laying down this weary skin,
this dainty roadside silhouette
these trembling, purple veins.
as if an act of making amends.
maybe not.
these lines are
escape routes stitched together
into a sorry imitation of poetry —

maybe my entire life has been that way  —
a sorry imitation of poetry.

a sorry imitation of sanity.

so long.

iv.
don't find me.
so long.