Member-only story
Shapes
Geometry of becoming.
I wanted to be
a different shape today.
But circle felt too cyclical,
and square too conformist —
like my Baptist mama
who always starts where
the last word ends,
moving corner to corner
without considering the diagonal.
Maybe I could be triangle,
but then I’d peak, fall back down.
I’m almost thirty — there isn’t time
to walk at an incline
like I did at nineteen, at twenty-four,
back when I thought
life was steady-state cardio
instead of an anthill,
squished under other people’s feet.
I guess I could be rectangle —
a perfectly predictable shape
for a suburban Subaru stroller-pusher.
But I fancy myself
high-minded hexagon,
an oracular octagon —
something with a lot of edge,
hard to draw in one quick swoop.
A shape that takes time to get right,
and you smile
when you put down
your pen.
