This time last year I was looking ahead at a new dawn.

Having just found diagnosis and moving towards treatment for the first time. 

I lost a rare remaining tether to childhood.

It isn’t one I ever intended to keep but it’s absence as the last still hangs around a touch. 

I laid down a life-long shackle to present as if my body were built in the way it should have been.

The only visage this world knows to extend acceptance. Instead carving it out for myself in a far more versatile shape. 

I fought for a standard of care that was not found in my long-awaited treatment. Its effects inconspicuously worsening night by night while its prescribers pushed it harder each day.

That triumph was one of the biggest of this year.

I lost the second space I’ve ever known to be home. It stung, like a skin being ripped from the form you’d just settled into. 

But then things go a bit fuzzy. 

The deconstruction came so quickly and all at once.

Moving within new windows and new neuropathways but unable to grasp or retain.

Amongst the blackness I have little puffs.

Glimpses of familiar faces in situations I feel more to have watched than lived. 

All bordered by spanning gaps and a haunting awareness that such pieces should be there. 

Now, as predicted, I feel as though I may be awakening adorned in trepidation.

As if dropped from a whirling wind, I have this notion I am returning but find myself dazzled by so much new. 

Just as I did this time last year, I stand before a new dawn.

A new treatment with a harder hesitation for hope but a deeper desire to believe. 

With success still comes learning.

Exploring the reach of a new brain, redeveloping trust in a new sight, and familiarizing the texture of new skin. 

I am scavenging for old treasures as if scouring someone else’s home. Seeking comforts within familiar settings but enclosed by new walls.

Surrounded by new ghosts, I find I have fallen into the unwavering acceptance of new hearts. I am intrigued and grotesquely curious at their open arms upon meeting a creature in such an erratic eclipse.

As I think forward, they feel like little glimmers given to nurture and blossom. Like the stars you used to wish on having finally begun to drop into reach. 

They sparkle in a trail led by the brightest. He landed just before the darkness and has been a consistent ember along for the ride. I yearn for the missing pieces around his arrival the most. I fear I’ll one day mourn their irrevocable loss but for now, I am piqued by the peculiar opportunity to steal a revision. A criminal act against fate but a far more deserving reward. Of all to overcome this last year, his wading blindly alongside me without an ounce of direction between the two of us is the triumph I treasure most. 

I have no end for this beginning.

It is recorded just as early as it is late but for now it feels a touch more promising than I’ve ever known it to before. 

[2021]