Renewed

by A J Dalton

Image credit: David García on Unsplash

I’ve changed

bodies so many times

now I don’t fully recall how

my original body and mind felt.

Did the person I sell it to keep it

for long, treat it well or use it for the lols?

Did they die in it, pass it on

or donate it to the poor?

I’m not sure I’m even the same person

anymore, stretched out in this narrow giant

with its glitchy cerebellum:

its impressive appearance

doesn’t actually fit

my more compact and heavier sense

of self

at all

which goes to show

you should be careful

what you wish for, right?

We’re all born with our own

shape and size, I think

unless I’m deluded and trying to rationalise

never having felt adequate and accepted

in this world from the beginning,

tolerance and understanding

or even perhaps what others mean

by love.

***

A J Dalton

A J Dalton (www.ajdalton.eu) is a UK-based writer. He’s published the Empire of the Saviours trilogy with Gollancz Orion, The Satanic in Science Fiction and Fantasy with Luna Press, the Dark Woods Rising and Green Man Ascendant poetry collections with Starship Sloane, and other bits and bobs. He lives with his monstrously oppressive cat named Cleopatra.