PATCHWORK OF A MIXED KID

Words by M.A. Dubbs 
Art by Amori Piñon 

I am a mismatched hybrid,
a sewn-together hacky sack with cultures visibly mending
so you can see every line.
If you pick at a stitch, I wonder,
will you watch me unwind?
Will you watch my innards spill onto the grass,
watch with a morbid curiosity about what content is inside?
We will both spectate as I unfold
because I myself don’t quite know what’s inside. 

Everything is in this constant state of change,
hot lava wax folding upon itself
in a float, in a free fall.
Consciousness is the catalyst of movement and even that fluctuates, too. 

I want someone to tell me what I am.
Make me a comfortable label
that I can squeeze into a filing cabinet
and feel safely enclosed between sheets and folders.
Help me fill out an identification form
with a quick “yes” or “no”
instead of a forced choice, single answer,
after prolonged deliberation of what I’m supposed to be.
Or maybe I don’t even want to be searchable
and instead, I can be invisible,
be forgotten in the rubbage of excess information. 

Decades of spinning and I don’t know me.
How can a midlife crisis be so young and so perpetual?
Every moment of “enough” is so fleeting,
soaked and lost into a barren
Earth that refuses to fertilize but also won’t die. 

How long can I frack for peace
before I break this ground I stand on?
How deep will I fall into the core of myself when I do?

Artist Amori Piñon