Poem 2: January 2

There never really was a me,
The kind I like to tell myself
Was as good-looking as sunshine,
As motivated as a miner whose
Gotten a tiny taste of gold
Flitting through the stone.
There was never the me before
The fall, but always the me
Waiting for the fall, waiting
To be on the floor, hands against
The cracked linoleum, feeling.
The me that was built, the me
I perfected and honed, like an
Automobile, metal upon metal,
Cinched and cut piece by piece
To move over the ground, faster
And faster until the day you
Find yourself on the road side,
Slower and slower as the smoke
Billows out behind and you think,
I should have built my legs,
My tired legs which now must
Lug me onward, which now must
Finish what metal could not,
What the me before the fall
Could not imagine would come,
What the me I've always been
Will always be, just legs
And legs and legs.

(Time to compose: 8 minutes)