Like Food in Storage

by Max Gilman '25 on February 10, 2023
Portfolio Co-Editor


Portfolio


Like food in storage,

I bear a singular label.

Never mine

And I fear to be thrown away.

Rotting in mold,

isn’t better. To be

  forgotten or folded

  in a thousand aliases—

And then who am I, to define myself, if I never was to begin with?

   Y.o.u:

the letters punched into my keyboard right now in this present moment; all I will ever be able to utilize, defining 

                        who I am.

 M.e: 

       dismal attempt to define life;

       a testimony to the person who wrote these words, 

       my last connection with

       who I was seconds ago.

                                    a label: nonexistent.

  A fib, a lie, myth, mold

       stains the seams of your named tag.

But you are the second, the moment, the present,

      you are an ink blot knotted on paper,

             are not the name of the parent.

better to be forgotten

Than folded 

In a thousand aliases,

        Like food in storage, 

        Like certificates of identity,

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without purpose.

on a page.

congealing.