like reading tarot cards

i look deeper -

past Plath, Brontë, Woolf

these names behind the glass windows on my bookcase

                                           in its mirror reflection these names on an unnoteworthy face.

i look deeper -

past the blood in my own veins

these women with whom i share a bony nose or the same dark curls

                                           but i only share them because they gave up school for a new nuclear family.

i look deeper -

past my shallow memory

these people i know; a purple headed bassist, a bus driver with a bolo tie, a distant cousin in Costa Rica

                                           and they'll never know it's true that somebody once wished to be just like them.

i look deeper -

past the boundary of every old success

these medals for willing every A- over the mark and paintings hung in the wrong size frames and weak chatters of handclaps at the end of each song

                                          where the satisfaction in a challenge replaces medals and frames and applause. 

i look deeper -

past all the obvious answers

and what chases me into the brilliant chasm ahead is exactly that:

                                          finally, a grasp on the version of myself who lives deeper and deeper in the greatest unknown.