dormant selves

Inside everyone

In quiet corners of their mind and heart

Reside their dormant selves:

Shadows, reflections, echoes

They could not all have co-existed

Opportunity costs to moving forward in time

But sometimes I miss mine…

The self which would sit at the window of a library and decode endless pages of equations of the physics of motion and energy

The self which was at peak physical condition, in tune with each heart beat and muscle fiber

The self that set aside at least an hour at the end of each day to sit and have a conversation with a book, and then record the highlights in a journal afterwards

The self that navigated changing cultures, countries, and cities so fluidly that this was comfort

The self which pondered the universe and its workings so deeply that it took longer walks home to try and catch a glimpse of the constellations

We sit in the middle of a circle

All our dormant selves surrounding us

And negotiate which parts of which to keep

And once in while

Dormant selves remind us of their existence

Stirred out of rest by a beam of sunlight catching an object in just the right way

Or in a distant, once-familiar melody

Or a faint, fading scent of a forgotten forest

We are collages of ourselves