For at least twenty minutes each day
I’d find myself showcasing
an unnatural nakedness
to myself, like a beggar
prostrating for a clean slate.
“I am going to change”
was the mantra.
Twenty years of unholy hours
and unrest.
In my exhaustion
I would hear a knock
on the doors of my closet
from a storm that was yet to be silenced.
Before it became persistent,
I’d already stopped caring. No adieu.
My own values turned into resentment
towards this beaten and unsatisfied flesh:
there’s nothing left to be said.