I am a soft shell and a hard tack. this is because I am only learning what I am. I am not either of those things and the concrete details become gravel, loose under motorcycle wheels, like an Ani Difranco song, when I reach for them. This is why I cut my hair - I am too many different things and the shapes don’t fit. I remember that summer. We went to the beach house of his parents’ friends. We stayed for free. It was in Rhode Island where the sands were whiter and the waters cleaner than in Connecticut where they are trapped by the sound. We stayed up late walking the beach and watching the glowing fluorescent creatures in the water. We rolled around on the sand kissing, his hands in my shirt, and when we saw an older couple far away, we said “we will be like that some day”. When they came closer and turned out to be his parents we laughed and I buried my head in his chest in embarrassment. We canoed through reeds which brushed our boat and made little sighing sounds. We loved each other very much, but every moment of love was like two lids slowly separating so an eye can see. We were very far apart when the world registered and the eye blinked clear. At night we put complicated jigsaw puzzles together on furniture that felt always moist from sea air, and I learned to hate the cardboard pieces in my hand and his. Those pieces fit. I was the thing that did not.

But I am a slow-moving iceberg; I am cold and frozen and always leaving that moment. For many years I was the skin right after touching stove coils, that moment when first there is shock and pain, a hot so hot that it feels like ice for a moment. But now I am ice. I am translucent and clean; you can see through me to little dreams of life frozen in my depth.

This is not to say that I am wanting anything. I am just still a little stunned.