A Thing is a Collection of Things

There is this looming figure over me
perhaps it’s just my shadow,
but I’m too afraid to turn around and look. 
And I’m just this thing,
that was born as a loose wet sac of skin
that in order to become a person, has to be filled up with other things,
small stories told in small voices 
and alcoholic dreams at the edge of a cliff and a howl. 
But I didn’t know this or I would’ve plucked and chose what I wanted to be filled with,
like a wine selection for dessert. 
So I became this pale lump of things I didn’t want to see,
let alone be; 
and so the world tasted like salty sweat and bruises,
and I had to make do without my peripheral vision,
just the only straight things I had to bear,
which all started and ended with pain.
And I had to find a way to make them right,
make them good,
make what I had become beautiful again,
if only I could turn my head. 

-anna sluder

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