For Mary Oliver (1935-2019)

who taught me I did not have to be good.

Mary,

You taught me what to do with my wild, precious life at a time when I didn’t know if I wanted that life to continue.

The wild geese you talked about saved me, so I could let the soft animal of my body love what it loves.

That “whoever you are, no matter how lonely, the world offers itself to your imagination…” as if to say, this world is yours and you are free to embrace it and embrace yourself.

When I thought I had to walk on my knees for a hundred miles through the desert repenting…

Layers of me have come unglued. Slowly, I am becoming. Slowly I am becoming me.

Self-actualizing. Growing. Blooming. Surgically removing ever so gently tissue that had long since caused pain and trauma.

I am becoming me.

I am becoming.

I am here…

I am.

I am becoming a new creation and yet I have always been this way, I think.

This new creation that remains a mystery to everyone–including myself.

This is a transition–no this is a transformation.

This is a metamorphosis.

I am becoming me.

I am becoming.

I am.

I am already here writing myself into existence.

And I do not have to be good.