vernal epoch
I wear myself
like a glove turned inside out—
seams exposed,
but skin still hidden.
Each room asks for someone different.
So I answer—
a soft version, a quiet one,
the one who nods and smiles
even when my ribs echo
with the hollowness of what I didn’t say.
There are too many me's
and none of them sleep.
They take turns
breathing for the body
while the soul watches
from just beyond the mirror.
I want to be known—
not liked, not praised—
but seen.
And I want it
without the cost of splitting open,
without the fear
of being too much
or not enough
or both
in the same breath.
Most days, I can’t remember
what it felt like to be real.
My memories are fog with edges,
faces I might have worn.
Love, even love,
feels like a pantomime
I’ve studied to perform.
Still,
I keep moving
through conversation,
through silence,
through the drag of hours
that leave me untouched.
It is not death I fear—
only this life,
lived behind glass,
where I vanish
one kindness at a time.
frank wolf