case-by-case stasis in poetry

The weird thing about the past is
those aren’t just stories about
someone like me,
those were actually me.
Not someone who just looks like me
or someone that I played once in a movie
but me.
I sometimes can’t believe it.

The trick of it is
when I feel that knot in my gut
that’s not just a feeling
I AM the knot
that knot in your gut
You ARE the knot in your own gut.
That gnarled mesh of life threads
in every direction,
that isn’t inside you,
that IS you.
Your very being is that intersection.

When you look at the disparate sections
of you, of your path, of your life
and you ask
“what in the hell could connect these things?”
just remember
“oh yeah. me.”

Those in separate do not define you
but in aggregate, they do create you
all that tension
ripping out in every direction
that torque force is you.
All those damn stories are you
or maybe me
as the case may be.