sincere: whole, clean, pure, uninjured, unmixed

a few years ago, i learned honesty
was not a noun to be adjectivised,
but a state to be verbed,
and more than that, to be lived
as a continuous stretch

(what else is upgrowing)

so in an intuitive impulsive address to life,
i stated
that i would hereby want to be bad at lying
in order to surrender all my secrets,
(unwanted toys i know were teaching me bad habits)

one by one
they left my coffers,
sometimes by my handing them over to embracing hands,
othertimes by clutching fingers pulling at snapping threads,
yet moretimes by no transaction of my own,
but by my standing outside castle walls, rained upon,
watching the stones wet
as my clothes soak and my clutchings slide out
from underneath my clever fabrics,
damp and discontraptioned.

despite the weather, i'd repeated to myself that
it was worth losing my patchwork playthings
since they would never satisfy
(despite their promises otherwise)

a few years later,
i have a parent who makes sure my head
is facing the sea,
even in front of the yawning waves,
even when i thrash about
tattooing emotions on my cheeks and corneas,
looking for surfaces to glance at me,
so that i can catch me looking back

the glimpse is of a pair of pupils
dilating, taking in the wordless
brushes of open eyes.