To become a poem? No. It is not a “becoming.” It is a de-forming. It is a slow, un-thinking violence against the self. First, you must lose your name. You must stand before the abyss of your own Sunday afternoon and realize that the bridges are not just burning, they never existed. There is only the now, and the now is a cold, bright blade.

I do not swim. To swim is to have a destination. Instead, I drown a little every day just to see what the water knows. Do you understand? It is not “resilience.” It is a lack of choice. You are carved out by the world. The “essence of love” is not a melody; it is a pulse, thick and mute, beating behind the eyes of a tired horse.
You speak of flames. But fire is too loud. To be a poem is to be the ash that remains after the feeling has forgotten its own cause. I am woven from threads, yes, but they are the raw, red nerves of a moment that refuses to pass. I am a vessel, but I am cracked. And it is through the crack that the “it” enters. The thing. The word that has no letters.

To be a poem is to have no skin. It is to look at a chair until the chair begins to scream. It is a state of grace so heavy it feels like a sin. I do not “become” a testament. I simply exist in the middle of a sentence that God started and then abandoned. I am a living thing, breathing, and that is already too much. It is almost unbearable.

©️ Beatriz Esmer