All of us are disappearing all the time
When I let in the day, I have to lose a little.
Make space. Disappear. They say humans lose
between 30-40,000 skin cells every hour.
I want to collect them all and make better
versions of myself. Stable skins, cells that stay put.
Live a little. What is permanence if not capturing
everything for keeps? My digital photos and films
will soon disappear too. I don't know what it means
to live in the cloud. The cloud is not real. Outer space
is full of cells and supernovas wishing to explode
in order to disappear. The day is crashing into my cell pile,
scattering what I thought I knew. My fear is that I'll lose
too much at once. More than I can possibly take on
or take back. Texting so much I've shed my fingers
to the quick. Everywhere I touch I leave fingerprints.
On the wine glass at the bar. The table. My iPhone.
Your skin. I bore too many holes into things,
disappearing their corners. Losing myself.
Losing it. I am afraid I'll never regenerate.
The cloud scoops up cells, a sieve for the substance
of myself I'll never get close to touching.
The day never gives back what it stole.
Originally from the Hudson Valley region of New York, Charlotte Seley is a poet and writer living in Providence, RI. She received her MFA in Creative Writing from Emerson College, where she served as Editor-in-Chief and Poetry Editor of Redivider. Her first collection of poems, The World is My Rival, is forthcoming from Spuyten Duyvil Press.