i am.

running is easy when you've got nothing left to lose. i've lost everything
—even my own name. as taken with my lacking as i am, i weave
even between the eaves of a forest that scatters its angles to the night,
where desperation compels me to fill the hole in my whole self
with whatever i can scavenge that will guard me.

so i snap a tree branch free to lance at phantoms; weighing my sword arm
down out of its socket, carving my history behind me in the drifter's dirt,
with my thumb and forefinger cutting into the jag of bark like bone,
scrambling in stitches for a trigger on a lifeline that is not a gun—

…i come up empty. the breaking is like breathing, a gouge in the sea with the shiv
of ten times i almost drowned on scenic beaches,
fixed to parry in my hand against some invisible enemy, i am steeped
in the anonymity. the anonymity of my

identity.

and just when i think that i've got nothing left to lose, i lose my balance.
miles and inches from where i've fallen, the doctor calls me by a name
that isn't mine. she has a brain between her ears to sheath her eyes.
she has a brawn at either side with reaching hands and soothing words
i hear like staring down the barrel that blew through the belly of the beast.

and i'm not telling you this like you were the one with their fingers 'round my wrists
with my weapon at their throat with my fear in their eyes, i'm not telling you
to try and make you feel what i was feeling as if i ever even felt what i was feeling
when i felt a skin slip over mine and pulse-to-pulse i pulled apart the pieces in-between
and to this day i could not tell you who was who.

identity.

i keep it only for the memories. i, the makeweight. the blank slate.
they wiped me clean with dirty palms; they stayed my fists with no fair fight.
but for every piece that i am missing, i know the fight is all that keeps me free.
so, i take my shot. i go down swinging:

thief! thief!
liar! liar!

they tell me to comply and i say “no.”
it's all i can do; in this moment, it's all that i am.