a long way to unitary in poetry

you are not who you were
you are a parade of living and dying neurons
deluding themselves through proximity
into believing yourself unitary
you are not one person
you are a progression
of partial overlapping things at best
you aren't one thing even in jest
you were a loose continuum

your consciousness
your soul
is a domino rally of influences at best
you are one thing falling for one moment
the next that person's one of the rest
of briefly held identities
briefly held ideals
fleeting ways of being
fleeting ways to feel
none of them are you
nor is this you either
you are a waterfall of reasons
you are an experience cascade
any concrete sense a delusion
any permanence a charade

with every moment
you leave the corpse of another you
behind you trailing in time
and it's nothing that's worth mourning
that you can still change is sublime
it's a miracle

the ability to change
is the closest thing we have
to a miracle

atoms can't change
or can't choose to anyway
sure there's collision
sure there's decay
but those things that happen to them
it's not an internal decision
only we can step back and say

okay
this doesn't work anymore
I need to be someone else

you are not the same person
that you were when you started
hearing this or reading this
at least incrementally
a few neurons died
a few neurons were born
the network that is you
has something new in store
embrace it

change is okay
you can't stop it anyway
and the future people that you'll be
can't stop it either