i keep trying on versions of myself
like shirts in a dressing room
half-lit
mirrors angled
just enough
to make certainty impossible
this one almost fits
if i don’t move too much
if i don’t raise my arms
if i don’t breathe too deep
there’s always something
a seam that pulls
a label scratching
a feeling like
this was made
with someone else in mind
⸻
i have been called things
names that sat on me
like borrowed jackets
close enough
to pass
not close enough
to forget i was wearing them
⸻
some days
i think i am close
like the word is there
just behind my teeth
waiting
but every time i reach for it
it shifts
not wrong
just not finished
⸻
what if this is it
not the arrival
not the clean sentence
but the almost
the in-between
the sentence still rearranging itself
while i am speaking it
⸻
i am learning
how to live
as a draft
how to let the edges show
how to say
this is not the final version
and still mean
this is real