truly new

i have nothing new, my socks have been washed countless times. i mean literally countless, because it's not only me that washes them. i abandon them under sheets or climbing up stairs, and a week later my lover will say, oh i washed these for you, like they're doing me a favor.

i shed layers as the snake does, leaving behind a sock, a book, eyelashes, the stray lipstick smudge, and i want nothing to do with it. if i can't have newness in my things, i want nothing. blooming like a flower, i swell and rise and don't dare look at the petals on the ground, the deadness that once was me but is no longer.

burn what you have of me and i will rise out of it, bald and bones, beautiful and unshackled. breathing and complete for my lack of anything else.

but for now, i stay grounded and give a smile and thank them, choosing for now to reuse.