Vera Podell

I Watch Myself Being A Child

So weird too see yourself on a kid\'s picture
It is still me while all the cells have been renewed
My eyes and guts are new, the stern and prow
What was going through my own head
The white noise
How do kids think?
The memories pulse somewhere inside
So deep they barely exist
The most vestigial part of me
But the part still
I used to know
Didn\'t even occur
That it might be a question over time
Something drizzling and terrifying
In those blueish eyes
My eyes aren\'t even blue now
Some shades of dirty green or grey
Somewhen something did happen to me
When and what and why I can\'t define
People cannot say such things out loud
Me too but solely cause I have nothing to say
How did you become this, I would like to ask
The picture that can\'t answer
Of a person no longer prevailing
I look at the stranger
And sometimes it is the mirror
And I am the stranger
I always am.