The truth of it is, I fear,
I am irretrievably lost.
I do not say it out loud,
But every day I wake up to relearn the map of my own body,
My mouth wanders when I say my own name.
I wonder if I would recognize my face on another.
I do not know if I am still somewhere, waiting to be found.
It is not a matter of memory, precisely.
Only that my apparition is entirely foreign,
I am left wretched, furious, in a breath.
But I cannot fight the war without the history of its battles,
And I do not have the strength to become someone new.
There are things I know, and I recite them to myself:
I love the color blue, and the sunset is the more beautiful after it rains.
I was loved, and knew how to love.
This was a truth.
At dawn, I now like to watch old boats come into port.
I stand on the shore and wave to those who pass by,
There are girls who look like me,
I wonder if they are lost, too.