Infinite Sum

When I was little, 

I sent my future self emails on my birthday.

Even then, I was afraid that

older me, full-grown me,

the me that would be paying taxes and

appreciating dreary monotone professors

and reading dusty Greek tomes

(swollen with philosophy),

the me that had matured,

would forget the important things.

Maybe back then I didn’t know how

to distinguish the temporary from

the irreplaceable, but I knew enough

to be afraid of loss. 

I cried at death before I understood it

yet I already knew that even when

my body turned to ashes and crushed bone,

I could die again—

my writing collected in a book

no one bothered to read.

My eight-year-old self told me

“Don’t forget what you love!”

“Don’t forget what you hate!”

and oh, the lists of half-buried

memories, of half-baked feelings,

of skinned knees and lost

library books, of video-game 

friendships and teachers’ pets,

of not knowing what each day would bring.

My twelve-year-old self told me:

him. just him.

because he smelled like jasper and

tasted like jade

and I thought one kiss

could put my pieces back together,

not realizing that I was already

whole.

My fifteen-year-old self stopped writing,

stopped the deluge of words,

preoccupied by insecurities

too massive to dislodge.

I was finding a way to define myself

without resorting to crushes, to

knives against my skin, to

choked sobs against my pillow.

I was finding a way to use line breaks in poetry without

breaking myself in the process.

Well, I’m not into philosophy and

I haven’t conquered death (yet) and

I never got that kiss but

I’m more than I ever expected—

the sum of hazy summer mornings and

singing softly to music at 2 am and

ripe raspberries and sour grapefruits and

sneakers that never seem to be free of dirt.

Every treasured sweatshirt and

stuffed animal and

emptied mechanical pencil and 

piece of paper with my name

written tremblingly across the top,

every word of disappointment or

kindness,

every beautiful feeling I’ve ever

felt,

settles into my skin until

I am swollen

unbreakable.