A FIGHT IN THE STORM, or THE DUEL OF DUALITY

Washed by the dawn of youth, I fear.

The rain comes knocking, and the night’s mouth, full of black teeth, hides the moon’s aura: a clean porcelain plate filled with ash to the brim.

“I am who I am” — is what I want to believe.
Instead, those words are stolen by the waves of black rain.

A damaged toy-boat, drowned out by the mud that penetrates through the rot of the white walls.
The shallow becomes deeper, and the raindrops turn to gems of ice:

Lilliputian daggers slashing through the blemished feathers of the wings on my spine. The storm rips out from the sky and I grip my hands onto the

guardrail, the crashing tides eject comets like shotgun bullets piercing my skin. Whipped by the gusts of wind, I let go of the railing and fall,

absorbed by the aphotic juice, thick like the blackstrap molasses that fill my arteries.
In it, I see him: not who I am, but who I think I should be.

I begin to fade away, stolen by it, by my own distorted echo,
until I am salvaged by the awakening morning light, revealing

The shadow of my mother and my father falling onto my reflection.
“I am who I am” — their greatest gift that I have yet to unwrap.