Mostly Undefined

“I'm not sure what I am,” her words tangled and coursed tighter around her than veins.

This phrase was her blood of the time.

She repeated the mantra till it filled her lungs,

recycled through her body

and flowed vividly through the pale of her cheeks.

“I'm a mess I don't know what I'm doing I dont know where I am going who I am turning into I dont know where I start what part of me is real if I lie to people or if I am lying to myself if I can change and be better I dont know how to even begin I know something must be a miss because I am not me but I want to be because me is the only me but I dont know me anymore Im such a mess that I cannot be anything more but I want to be because I am me and me is not a mess and I have no idea what I am doing I dont know who I am”

With each ambiguous phrase the poor girl entrenched herself

further into obscurity.

She was creating her own un-definition.

Poor girl.

She turned to me, poor girl,

hoping to catch pieces of a mirror,

wanting a reflection.

But in me she would only find a pond, rippled and mirky.

And only my love for her lie at the bottom.

“You wont find anything steadfast here. Im so sorry”

“I know”

She wanted to redraw herself, take any bent pieces and straighten them

she wanted to untangle, deconstruct, add color, sharpen 

and chase/embrace the ever-elusive idiom, “let go”

“Isn't that what I should do? Let go?

Let go of any chance of finding myself?

Sorting it out? Stop putting so much pressure on myself to really be me?”

I didn't know what that meant.

So I tried something else:

“What do you see?”

“Huh?”

“What do you see? When you look at that, you, what do you see?”

“I dont even want to look”

(We are all sculptures wanting to be reshaped by our own hands,

But we cannot wet our hands and mold the world that reforms us)

“You want to be the Maker and the clay

and poor girl, that simply won't do.

In some chances it might. You could probably hold destiny at bay

and carve yourself”

“Huh?”

“I see flowers.

When I first looked at that, you, I saw a vase on the left and maybe flowers made of twine or ropes and I saw sunshine. Do you see that too? Maybe you dont, but regardless of what is perceived, it is the ability to carry all the unknown that is most important. If you cant tell what you are, know that I see flowers. Beautiful black and white flowers and no matter how undefined you may want to pull yourself towards, I will always see you, see that,

I see flowers”

Photo by Angela Shields.  Words by Jordan Shappell.