becoming
lianna lazaros
In not wanting to become a bear
I become a bear. All surrenders
are metamorphoses. All beneath
me is ice. This applies to the skin.
This applies to every sin that left
my mouth. Don’t trust everything
I tell you. I say that I want to kill
myself and I am still alive. I say
that I don’t have a mind enough
to consider me human. Consider
this: all surrenders are mutations.
An amputation of what was once
desired. I once desired a home.
And now I phantom-limb a home.
I have hands that speak faster
than my brain and a body that
doesn’t know where it belongs.
Consider the body. Consider
the bear. Consider how I am still
alive. Consider the ice that hangs
from car bumpers and has been
for two days. Remember that days
keep happening and they always will.
Even if they don’t happen to you.
In not wanting to speak I found
my voice. In not wanting to live
I discovered how to survive.
Lianna Lazaros (she/they) is a SUNY Purchase College graduate with a BA in Creative Writing, where she received the Ginny Wray Junior Prize in Poetry. Residing in the Bronx, they are an assistant editor for an independent, non-profit literary magazine, Small Orange Journal. Their work has previously been published in Submissions Magazine, Gandy Dancer, and elsewhere.
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