Kenonaut

And I’ll slack the ropes myself.
What once tethered me to name and shore
has rotted in silence
The wind does not rise to meet me,
though the water pulls, as it does

The hull of me creaks
from something subtler than storm
the weight of unbecoming

And though the sky, by now,
is more night than horizon
I light no lantern
And let the stars bear witness
To what a man becomes
when he is no longer certain he was here

Each wave speaks, or shouts rather
Their frantic reminder
of the litany of selves I rehearsed
and once believed.

Further still on the inward voyage
and those stars will dissolve, too
Their constellations too dependent on the arrogance of coherence
anyway

I peel myself, from myself, in quiet layers
The voice,
my face
(was that my mom’s smile? Or maybe my dad’s…),
The ache to return

Nothing follows me here.
The hands that once stilled me,
nor the lips that praised
then cursed me.
Hope and regret,
once faithful masts,
splinter at their base

The compass mourns the loss of direction
Time, unthreaded,
spools out in the dark saltwater
I don’t think I can read the map anymore.
I do think I’m grateful for that.

But still,
I’ll drift deeper.

Away from meaning, thankfully.
Not to find myself,
but to lose the one
who needed finding.

Soon,
I think the ship will forget it is wood.
And I’ll hope this breath
forgets it was mine.

In the end, if there is one,
I think there is only the current.
Only the cold pull
of fullness spilling out

To the sacred hollow.
To the unmade.
To the boundless dark
that is not death,
but origin.

The act of self-emptying.