When a caterpillar starts making its chrysalis, maybe before it knows

It’s

so hard to explain. I woke up like this— wretched,

raw, disheveled in a way that lends itself to ritual,

and you can’t help me. I can’t stop creating myself. I walked

out of my room this morning, and I haven’t stopped once since. 

I literally don’t know who I am other than this thing in me that’s

Growing

is fundamental. Every time I think I’m about to dive off

a cliff, my faceplant only means I kiss the ground, then the sky—

because it doesn’t matter whether I meant to or not.

Every time I fall, I fly. Help me— I don’t need to know what comes next,

I just need to know it’s not this, that it’s better, at least that it will stop if

It

only took one night of old photos instead of sleeping, and eighteen years

for me to begin the weaving: the unravelling, the work of reminding my leaves they too

have veins, made for sun. I wish I could start from scratch, but it’s because desire is an itch,

and I’m scared it might never begin. My whole body has become background noise,

but now I am finally turning up every dial on every speaker as high as it

Goes

to show you, that you don’t have to be ready for something to crave it, to need it. Before I ever knew I wanted movement, I knew I wasn’t meant to be still. My skin was

anticipation pulled taut over nerves, frenzy forged in grief— mourning, dragging every late night

into dawn, because I am uncovering the beautiful horror of myself one hour at a time;

and my god, I am inevitable, perpetually emerging into the reality that I am wild, inherent,

Insane

is what I called myself, at first. Then I chose a different name.

Cacophony, symphony, somebody that I want to be; I struck a deal with personhood,

and this is what it made of me. It took being lost to journey, frantic nights

to learn to dream. I walked out of my room this morning, and I think I’ll never sleep again. 

I’ve been restless. I am restless. But I’m going to be me,

First.

When a caterpillar starts making its chrysalis, maybe before it knows

it’s growing, it goes insane first.

Edited by Melissa Hernandez Gonzalez

Artist Statement: The above poem is written in an original form called the 476 (said “four-seven-six”) wherein every stanza ends incomplete, and pivots in the middle of the fifth line into the next on a single word. The pivots, when added to the title, form a couplet at the end.

The poem is about growth in the sense that it can be terrifying to discover yourself.
Sometimes we don’t understand who we’re becoming,
even when we’re becoming who we really are.

When a caterpillar is dissolving in its chrysalis, literally melting into something raw and imperfect and primordial, does it think it’s descending into something unfathomable?
Does it fear what it’s becoming—just like we do?