Me (Moth)

by Amber McBride

Given or replaced, names hang to your bones like forever suits.

Names outgrow you, like a garden left untended; they don’t disappear with the science that keeps our bodies alive. Jesus is still Jesus, alive, dead & resurrected— & if we forget, headstones remind us that names slouch on without bodies.

Two summers ago our car broke in half like a candy bar on the freeway & we all spilled onto the pavement as crumbled as sticky caramel-peanut filling.

I’ve always been a passing breeze, felt but never seen

I am not something to anyone.

It’s fine, I don’t mind being nothing to no one, unrooted on every soil my feet trespass on.

everything I wore was borrowed, even my time felt borrowed.

First position: It’s not your fault you lived. Second position: Until you are alone. Third position: Fault lines multiply. Fourth position: So you sacrifice. Fifth position: For accidently living, for being so filled with life, death did not recognize you.