July 31st
I look at myself, like a thing.
My fingers are segmented, I am segmented:
I might be a worm, I might seek out ways to segment myself,
to grow someone new.
But I grow myself in segments, and they have borders:
people ask me: why do you do this, why are you
the way that you are,
and I blink. I look at my fingers, at the palm of my hand.
I grow myself, like a worm,
like a single-cell, like a thing. I am all of these,
I am someone new and cut into pieces.
I grow myself, I leave places: I worm my way through the dirt.
My fingertips exist, in pieces. The scars exist;
I categorize them: I can point and shoot,
point and shoot, asking for an answer.
But my life is in segments, in borders, in worms –
in fingers and in single cells,
in why, why, why are you like this,
and I stare at my hand, it is July 31st,
and I am a thing, she says, just a thing, just a thing.