Inventory Story

By Nicholas Sabin.

So I guess this is growing-up time.
Taking inventory of your vital parts,
your quirks and your queries,
your dreams and your worries,
sorting them into boxes of 'fit' and 'don't fit,'
as if self was so easily assigned.

And where do I draw the line?
this thing keeps splitting me apart,
the challenge of being but not being there yet
the challenge of trying but not understanding it,
pushing away 'gainst the remains of my life,
trying to separate what's been combined.

Oh, to structure a feasible design,
something to hold me tightly 'gainst my heart,
the yearning for shedding the gossamer past
the aching for breaking the shadows at last
I'm trying to walk past the things that I was,
as if self was so easily defined.

I'm putting down memories, swallowing wine,
applying new logic to my personal arts,
saying farewell to what to rend me to shreds,
open embraces to loves and new friends,
I'm taking my paces to what I might find,
intent on discovering what fate had in mind.