How can an old me exist in the past?
Or does this prompt require me to fast
Forward
A message in a bottle from my sequel
Versions of “I” and “me” deemed unequal
Jagged glass, tossed about the sea, deemed polished
An unavoidable trajectory praised or admonished
Am I ever new, if perpetually used?
If the old us is younger, are we not confused?
Bemused
The past and future writing in the present tense.
Therefore I choose, to write from the end. Stanzas stacked, likely not to comprehend
(Lest you choose to read from the end to here. Or both, for you have free will, my dear)

Your dear friend
The older, new me, most sincere
I’m typing it early, for this hemisphere
I hope this doesn’t reach you too late
The last we spoke, “is not” wasn’t “ain’t”
Do you still like to paint?
An emotional state of inclusivity
Your interpersonal, personality
An ephemeral state of relativity
Will be
The small that you were, and you are, and
Or plummeting down hill
From slowly ascending
Glad to see you still find a thrill
Lie
Yet the imagery of a heart, is a symmetrical
The muscular breakdown of a thigh
Similarly, the tension of a bicep
Our chest
Inside
How strange to know what a heart looks like
Stare
You’ve observed, despite being told not to tear
You’ve stretched knowing that you could
Omnipotence
Accepting a life in pursuit of infinite
Ignorance
My how you’ve found bliss, devoid of
Good evening, self

You’d watched her do it for years with envy. Turned on the switch that illuminated a dozen eggs scattered about a styrofoam oven. Instead of two neat rows of 70 calories, these misshapen, feather laden, orphans lay dormant in my mother’s 1st grade classroom until they pecked their way through birth only to be “set free” and dead before their 6 year old foster parents started the next school year.
So when I, crossing the farm across the street, stumbled upon a nest without a mother, took it upon my 12 year old self to clutch the only child from its cold next and cradle it within my hoody as I entered my first month of motherhood. I found the incubator, covered in the amniotic fluid of this past year’s open-house-show-stopper, and quietly brought it upstairs to my closet. I plugged it in and placed my single egg within its synthetic worming haunches. A few weeks later, my pubescent closet was filled not only with American Eagle sale items but the warmth of newly hatched killdeer. It was an endangered species. I fed it worms and it died. I felt proud. But now, filled with regret.

To be a piece
To be at peace
Don’t call me on my homophone
It’s likely that I am alone
But is alone, a singular state? Alone because you are unknown? A loan because you want a home?
Peace is often associated with solidarity; something for which we’ve waited
A state sedated, perhaps over rated
Peace for me is found in a crowd
Strangers to surround, ears are filled with the din of a city’s sound
Camouflaged by the anonymity of vicinity to those with whom we share our city
What is my piece?
Where am I at peace? Do we ever really know until we’re deceased?