My Various Selves - March 30 2024

 

My Various Selves

March 30 2024

We are all multiple

and contradict ourselves,

different

depending on who we’re with

when and where.

Like words

that contain their opposites

   —  revolution, sanction, dust  —

context is everything.

Both revolve

and revolt.

How a planet around its sun

returns to its starting point;

but also to overthrow

by means of guillotines

and blood.

As I said, it depends.

But revolutions eat their young

and hardly ever last;

if the old order

doesn’t resurrect itself,

then a new elite

will happily take their place.

As if there’s a gravity

in human affairs

that levels everything,

restraining the excesses

and pulling us back to earth.

The multitudes

made whole.

But I am either anti-matter

dark energy

or both

and feel I’ve come apart.

My various selves

are fissiparous

centrifugal

atomized;

nothing coheres,

there's no steady state.

I orbit no sun.

The centre doesn’t hold

the circle doesn’t close.

I am both known, and unknowable;

a black hole

that emits no light

so I can’t even see myself.