on the precipice…

On the precipice of possibility
how do I hold myself back,
concretizing into remembered forms,
contorting to hold shapes
patterned into bones
and breath
and being?

How do the selves I have
been
and known
cast shadows
to constrain the selves
I might one day become?

How might I fashion from my past
a foundation —
solid, strong, reliable —
upon which to build;
rather than make of it an anchor,
to resist the tides of change
that wash upon me?

What might I encounter
if I risked being swept ashore —
or out to sea —
do I dare be flown
beyond the endless eddies
of the known?

31 July, 2023