Nothing Something Everything: The self

Note: The following tripartite prose poem takes place on three parallel tracks (Nothing, Something and Everything) which one may read in several sequences:

A. From start to finish, including each track (as in a traditional poem)

B. One track at a time (i.e. only italics, standard or bold)

C. Two tracks at a time (e.g. standard and bold but not italics)

D. Repeating some lines, skipping others, reading backwards, etc. (for complete reader control)

The self

The self is unstable, as eternally changing an entity as the ocean

The self is an ocean of waves, existing within certain bounds

Within the space of the sea-self, there is movement

We are empty vessels, separated by our sides

Identity, the liquid that fills us, the substance that is us

Our liquid a pittance compared to the collective ocean we could become

My self became a strainer & I couldn’t hold on to anything

Some people, thimbles, need only a drop, & yet

Doubling fluid, exchanging essence

I fell through the gaps in my self

How stable is a vessel on a raging sea?

The fantasy of stability maintains our sanity

We are houses of cards, shaken by whispers

A building collapsing on amorphous foundation

Our limited framework is expandable, replaceable

& still we create because the barrenness scares us

& still we construct on the scaffolding of self

& still we conspire of our constancy