like reading tarot cards
i look deeper -
past Plath, Brontë, Woolf
these names behind the glass windows on my bookcase
in its mirror reflection these names on an unnoteworthy face.
i look deeper -
past the blood in my own veins
these women with whom i share a bony nose or the same dark curls
but i only share them because they gave up school for a new nuclear family.
i look deeper -
past my shallow memory
these people i know; a purple headed bassist, a bus driver with a bolo tie, a distant cousin in Costa Rica
and they'll never know it's true that somebody once wished to be just like them.
i look deeper -
past the boundary of every old success
these medals for willing every A- over the mark and paintings hung in the wrong size frames and weak chatters of handclaps at the end of each song
where the satisfaction in a challenge replaces medals and frames and applause.
i look deeper -
past all the obvious answers
and what chases me into the brilliant chasm ahead is exactly that:
finally, a grasp on the version of myself who lives deeper and deeper in the greatest unknown.