CALL ME BELOVED

It all seemed so effortless then, a notebook filled
every two months – easier to do when I’d never look back,
just add the notebook to the stack and tuck it way.

My days are carried out in hindsight now, endlessly evaluating
the branching paths that led me here, to this chair, watching
shadows of bodies amble behind the high-rise windows opposite my own.
I don’t horde those pages torn from the ledger like I used to.
The pen moves, the lines fill, until they can’t hold another word –
and then a new page, born within the dirge of tearing and crumpling.

Is this how an identity is made new? Do I call this self a new page,
name that ache in my heart as just the tearing away of the last chapter –
just lines too full to hold another minute of another day? Can I pretend
this skin has never seen the sun, write about it each morning through
new eyes and never lose the wonder of it all?