Something Less Than Human

I came, through sea waves, misty-brained, 

My love songs crumbling to shadows, 

And I was halved to something 

Less than human. How could I grow 

Into something more than what I had become? 

Impossible now, the diminishing returns 

Of what was given me at birth. 

Smaller than a baby now, more of a creature 

Belonging to the forests, of stumps 

And traps and blood, the day-moon 

Hanging over me like a sad reminder. 

I was lost, having become lost, and unable 

To return to where I started, which 

Was no-place at all. I cannot hold to my visible shape: 

The self’s disunity makes me formless, mercurial.