An early morning walk, I am in the sixth grade
The light is blue, with the sun reticent behing mountains
The night is thinking of dissipating, but not yet
not yet
These small moments feel formative
Small increments of time connected from then to now
Like links of a chain, each unique, yet whole
From moment to moment, I remain the same
yet
I know this cannot be true, I am not the same
As I was in the sixth grade, walking down the gravel
Hearing the birds in the early morning chill
I feel that my consciousness is fully formed
not yet
I had a recurring nightmare growing up
A sphere that was a square, formed of pick up sticks
Hundreds at first glance, no thousands, no millions
More than all the grains of sand in the world
Each stick, each rod was unique, it had its place
Each rod had a function, each function made the shape
The shape was a sphere, but it was also a square
For in the completeness of how it should be
It was something else entirely
I did not know it then, but I know now
I was viewing my consciousness from outside of it
Why was it a nightmare then?
Viewing my own mind, its strange duality
Alien to the very shape of itself
The rods would shift constantly, moving without stop
Some would fall out of place
I would have to push them back
More would fall fall of place
I would have to push them back
Hundreds, thousands, millions
I could not keep up with the
nightmare
My consciousness was broken, fractured
Parts of myself were flung outwards
They attached to strange things, odd things
I was a human, a monster, a super hero, a robot
yet
I was none of these things
I was not formed to be what I needed to be
I was broken and not even a human then
I did not know that, not yet
not yet
My nightmare, my consciousness, moment to moment
I have learned to shape in my own way
Turning this broken thing into something almost human
And it is who I am now
yet
I am only a chain of memory