“One can live without having survived.” Carolyn Forche
โYouโve been living in a dream world.โ
–Morpheus, to Neo;
The Matrix
ย
I didnโt survive the second birth certificate. They killed me with official typeface and fresh signatures. Now, I liveโshadowed within a new name. The un-memory of my only bottle feeding by my birth mother drives my ceaseless, silent scream. I sometimes join it to the panicked quiet of this second-name identity. Like when I hear Mom scream my new nameโat three in the morning.
I am the unseen fire, filling every uttered syllable of every song and poem โIโ write. I am the perfect storm of an unsurvived life that lives nonetheless. Donโt ask me for my name, for there is power in it. And I wonโt give mine away.
Experience me, instead, shadowed within my new name. Try not to shudder.
Veterans Day birth…
โSaint Martin of Tours,
pray for usโฆโ
for Real Toads’ย Poets of April, imagined by Susie Clevenger
#GloPoWriMo2018 / #NaPoWriMo2018ย 22/30
Frank J. Tassone 
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