Sometimes, who I am
Published by Beyond Words Literary Journal, Volume 54, January 2025
Sometimes, I smoke one cigarette in the park, hiding behind
the Indian restaurant, listening to poems spoken in a soft Irish voice.
Sometimes, I wish those words were mine, watch daisies vibrate in the wind
write down the words ‘feather’ and ‘crossable’ and ‘raven’, just in case.
Sometimes, I silent-shout into my pillow at night pleading to the shining god
I half-remember just to send me back to sleep, just sleep – that’s all.
Sometimes, I ride my bike fast into wind as trees lean into a tunnel –
a great green Mexican wave for my arrival, my heart fast and on fire
as the who I was then and the who I will be race to catch up with me.
What I would say to the who I was then is this: Tell the truth.
Tell the truth to that gleaming cluster of wanting you lugged around:
That the world will tilt and burn and smash your heart
But afterwards come feather cracks that leave room for light,
such light that clusters and rages in uncatchable pools.
Sometimes, the heron seems to know who I am, lone hunter
his blinking eye scorching forests for secret forage, knowing
sometimes I wish for a freedom that will never be mine
that once crossable river now a white wash of love and tethering
to raven hair and wild newness, soft-cell aliveness inching
with such light into the shadows that kept me safe for so long.
What I would say to the who I will be who races me through
the trees is this: the world tips, scorches, shatters, but anyway -
now it’s too late to let go.
An extra note
This is a poem about identity. We present ourselves to the world in carefully packaged ways—shaped a little differently for our family, friends, colleagues, children. But the ‘self’ is slippery. It waxes and wanes, shifting through different periods of our lives. Here, I explore a handful of those facets: addicted, insomniac, spiritual, creative, desiring, lonely, wandering, wild, free. Perhaps, now that I think about it, these are all the facets I have tended to try and hide from the world.
The poem ends with me stepping fully into my identity as a mother. For all that motherhood confines and tethers, for me it has also been the ultimate act of freedom: of life, of light—shining into and shattering the shadowy corners of the self I once tried to carefully curate.
A few sidenotes: this is one of my favourites that I’ve written. The ‘soft Irish voice’ I mention is Pádraig Ó Tuama—listen to Poetry Unbound, my favourite poetry podcast. And, in case you missed it, the words I jot down at the start—‘feather’, ‘crossable’, and ‘raven’—resurface later in the poem as ‘feather cracks’, a ‘once crossable river’, and ‘raven hair’.
Sometimes, who I am was published by the wonderful Beyond Words Literary Journal (Volume 54, January 2025) and also features in my chapbook Sunlight Later.