from AN ODE TO MY EIGHTEENTH YEAR
The new year begins, as it always does,
with the obsession of resolution.
Turn over a new leaf, a new life.
Write on its veins an oath to myself:
lose the extra weight, be more intentional,
mold a brand new metamorphosis.
I craft my own version of the Ten Commandments:
One.
Flaunt a new skin with the tag still attached.
I am fluent in the art of breaking promises.
I speak betrayal well, its syllables
a smooth jazz, a drop of nectar.
Abandonment lingers in my blood like illness.
I cannot speak commitment,
I cannot digest its meaning,
I do not possess that genetic code.
So the extra weight stays,
resolutions dissolve.
The intentions are lost in translation.
I am stagnant, a fixed image.
A portrait hanging in a neglected ballroom,
one that hasn’t felt the swing of dancing feet
in a thousand years.
