To My Previous Self
Fizzy-eyed young one, don’t judge me.
Don’t look so dazed with disappointment,
hands dangling from your bright blue dungarees.
I’m still doing the thing you love,
though I miss loving it the way you did.
How did you do it?
Climbing skyscrapers in hand-made kits,
wire-walking between clouds,
treating rejection as a bridge.
I have been dreaming about you.
Each time you are slapping my shoulder &
telling me to wake up.
The Yoruba proverb warns of
A-jí-má-boójú:ti nfi ojú àná woran
A-person-who-rises-in-the-morning-without-washing-his-
face: one who sees things with yesterday’s eyes.
Starting today I will exfoliate my regrets.
I will only knock on doors
that have odd numbers– dare me–
even ones that have none.
I will no longer be a tenant of fear.
I am reclaiming that un-choreographable desire I had.
Which means I must swig the air into my throat
and breathe it back into the world newly
effervescent.
