i take it very seriously

how close sleep comes to death. the earth pushes thirty revolutions in my lifetime—all of them around the sun, unfortunately. my birthday

is at the beginning of february; in essence, most of the year is spent the same age. come new year’s, i am lighting a black candle, releasing twenty-nine

like it’s a seventeen-inch rockfish. i am releasing that which no longer nourishes me, banishing that which saps my strength. i am still

unlearning submission, reimaging myself at age twenty, hope and haven represented by the first sunrise of a new decade. hindsight

is 20/20 and here i am wishing for future sight. god, i am still so tired and trainwrecked, but there’s also some vestige of an ember

left in me that has stayed alive through all the time passed between then and now, and spitefully, i want to breathe into it still.