Written in parts by the students of the TLA Course, Saturated Selfies:
Sandy Bot-Miller, Janet Toone, Pam Roberts, Tiffany Vakilian, and Laurie Baron.
I am not young and sexy,
I am not lithe and lean,
And sometimes I deflate
like flattened bubble wrap or feel hard
as bumps on a storm sewer drain.
I am no size at all,
but I am for chocolate,
every day.
I am for one thing at a time.
I am visionspinner
and I am not able to survive
without the color wheel or words,
without some radial balance.
I am not deep shade or light tint
but I am not without value;
I am painted water lilies
from Monet’s garden series.
I am not less than I am.
I am not the one who did it!
I am not going to tell . . . .
I am not interrupting, am I?
I am not certain.
Or am I?
I am not apologizing because
I am not what I thought I’d be.
I am not wise,
not settled, and
I am not lost or found.
Not either.
I am just not where I was before.
I am not done.
I am not anything but grateful
for my “one wild and precious life.”
I am always going out and coming back home.
I am for the calm after the storm.
I am paying attention.
I am writing life.
I am a carrier of history.
I am storyteller, mouthpiece for many,
mouthpiece for the one,
mouthpiece for self.
I am seeing myself.
I am.
Special thanks to the instructor Angie Miller
for her wonderful class about selfies
and for the clever editing of our group poem.