I'm searching the book

you gave: you are everywhere --


you're so deceptive!

Earthly possessions, earthly possessions;
At most they’re all of my greatest confessions

As the mask I so love to wear over my face
Is a mask made out of chameleon skins-
It grants me a shrewd changing appearance,
Camouflaging myself, to fit in with the crowd.

They call me
A...
Mummy
Partner
& Love

They call me
Friend
Lover
Playmate

They call me
Sister
Daughter
& Auntie Iva

They call me
Mother Dearest
When they're feeling
Cultured
& Refined

Or Mummylumps
When feeling
Content
Shiny
Or snugly

They call me
Hey you
Miss
& Ma'am
When I'm just another body
In line
In traffic
In their way

They call me
Vivi
Vi
Or by my full name
When they know my mom and dad

They call me
Student
Client
Patient
Or User
When they want my money

They call me
With tears, sometimes
Or with ire
With confusion
Joy
Or small triumphs
When I have the privilege
Of being their person


They call me names
These are their names
They are not mine

it's always something, isn't it?
something that was once yours,
something that they took
and then convinced you
that it never really existed.
it was something important, you think.
something that you gave up,
something that wasn't even worth keeping;
anyway, that's what they told you.
"surely, you will be better without it, sweetie."
now that you forgot your own shape
wherever you look - it's all the same,
a convenient fixture to cover a lie.
but does that brief ache every time you smile
ever make you wonder
what that something was?
something that once
used to be yours.

I am thy bride; my husband, Lord, thou art;
And I doe crave the nuptuall embrace
Wherein wee'l intermingle face to face
And whereby hart exchanged is for hart:
Ravish thou, Lord, thy bride; I come apart
With eagernesse, and seeke to grasp apace
The grandest prize for which I ranne the race,
Running from there whereat I first did start.
Lord, thou art one; and also thou art three;
And when thou shalt thy bride embrace, then two
Shall be one fleshe, and every rendezvous
Thereafter be betwixt but thee and thee;
For I shall be no more when all that's of
My selfe is love in love with God, who's love.

Perhaps      the    best of me      is behind              beyond
that          point of irreversibility           a beacon
of       inevitability           and it serves                as such

I am no longer       shiny     or     shocking     or     new
a        brown paper bag           crumpled     and      creased
milk that     sours    and      curdles        a   homesick     orphan

a     lamb   on    its   back   and    I  will   always   be    a  child
I will   always   be   a   child   I    will    always     be   a   child      

Love      contorts     me             I    curve    and    twist    
and       grow          larger           and            wider
I am              a flesh ball               a blush balloon
punctured by         a mere *****                I am sensitive

tuned        too tight        like my         Grandmother’s    piano
but it was     the first   I ever played     so no other     sounds right
and    I tell      my first       love      the       same        thing

I am entropy         the blaze of a sun          a deity of delusion
a fickle fig                                                 (pick, peel, devour)

I am a tear in your jeans    a loose thread     a love-sick sack
a daughter                                     (and some days, a mother)

I am tin teeth      a blade in your belly      a hive in your head
a feeble fawn                                                      (a black bull)

I am an amalgamation of       deficiency     and         divinity
coarse and common as coal        I am the     sun    the nether
the shade under the rock         I am nothing       nothing at all

Who am I,
But the meaningless purpose, set out
To echoes of their tears— dancing their fires
upon each tongue. Am I wrong wanting not,
to be as equal to parentages?

What does it mean to be free; to be not
Set to be, or set free in a world, only not to be
Anything it recognizes— for the freer person in
this world, are only but the dead. So must I,
sacrifice my life, to then feel alive?

My time each day, is all amalgamation of
Escapeless breath. Oh, isn’t it such a waste to
Be young; for the subtle interest of being ill trained
By the perception of the Owed?

For our youth is truly a debt to those
who train us to be better—
But it’s a lesson not meant to be free,
for when you meet their age, you like them,
feel something is owed.

“Oh, where is the time, I had invested in you,
The wisdom and guidance my
hand laid upon your head?
For from the full of my flesh, I raised you up,
From being a fool. I had decided your
purpose from what I had seen fit,”

Enough then said; to ask of you again,
who am I, who am I then?

Everything happens

to me, nonetheless I am --


the protagonist.