Picking Apart The Pieces

How much of myself

do I have to remove

before I become true?

How quickly can I

achieve perfection?

I chisel away at my figure

like a sculptor forming marble,

my Aphrodite hips shrinking 

to accommodate the artistic vision

of society and my own expectations. 

Patiently, I brush away my memories 

like a paleontologist sweeping dirt

to find my skeleton at the core,

muddied by the passage of time.

My smooth skin crumbled eons ago. 

I whittle my own soul down to a shiv,

hacking away pieces of grainy wood, 

crude and misshapen by the actions 

of the dull pocket knife. My sharp point

cruel, and mistaken for a fuller person. 

I’m a jigsaw puzzle slammed together 

in the wrong order and flinging my

remaining pieces to the floor below.

My grooves forced into uncomfortable

shapes, linking together in curious ways. 

How does one reverse subtractive art?

Is it possible to glue myself

back into place as if practicing kintsugi?

Scotch tape the wood back into the grooves

and reconfigure the jigsaw of my life.

I am individual chainmail links,

painstakingly woven together 

to complete a single connection

between my hand and my rusting brain.

Fused together with a soldering iron.

Atoms coming together to build

a structure larger than the sum

of its solitary segments. Building 

bonds to account for the years of

emotional and physical neglect. 

My needs are crossing structures 

built by popsicle sticks stained 

red with childhood flavors, matching

a collection of cherry berry lips. 

Interlocking bricks stacked

higher and in more infinite

and intricate colorful designs 

are made of primary colors

staggered against each other.

Is my completed diorama made 

of positive and negative space?

A mix of high and low on the

sliding scale of my life. Have I

finally become a work of art?