And I’m insatiable. And I don’t know my limits. 

So I’m gone-drunk and watching my body float through space, 

          there it is near mars,

                                          there it is thrown out of the milky way. 

That’s how far my sense of self has flown from me, how 

terrifying it is the reflection on the bright blue pond. 

I’ve changed so much to please you, 

                                             and I haven’t learned my lesson, 

and I’ll kneel and beg until the next solstice. 

I’ll forget what my name looks like, 

                                                   or what my voice should say. 

I’ll be whatever brings you comfort in the moonless dark, 

I’ll be the seasons that bring change in weather, that 

draw the scent of marigolds from our palms. 

                                                                 This is the enchantment 

fairy tales warned us about, the fatal transformation into 

an object of desire. 

                                 I hear the warnings, the ghouls grieving in the woods, 

but I can’t turn back. It’s like pulling all the light out of the sky 

           to shove it back into the confines of a mind. 

It was so empty in there. It was so cold and motionless. 

I had no future, no escape through the ruins. 

           My purpose is clear now. Destroy everything in my path. 

Make the landscape unrecognizable 

                                                       with hunger. 

And so nothing will be enough. And each day our lives 

appear frighteningly new to us, gleaming from the lake water, 

                     cleansed and baptismal. 

I won’t go back. I’m happy I can’t recognize who I was without you.

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Nghiem Tran was born in Vietnam and raised in Kansas. He is a Kundiman Fellow and resides in New York City.