Pursuit

I have spent a life
in the pursuit of vanishing,
not in disappearance, 
nothing so absolute, 
but a gradual thinning
at the edges of being,
a way of standing
just outside
what I am.

I learned early
how to lessen
the weight 
of my presence,
to speak 
without settling,
to remain 
without arriving.

It was not loss
I was after
but a kind of refinement,
as if what remained
might be more true
for having been reduced.

But nothing resolves this way.
The self does not dissolve,
it redistributes into habits,
into silences, into the shape
absence takes
when it is practiced.

Still, something persists,
not defiant, not even aware, 
only continuing
where I have tried
not to be.

I have spent a life
in the pursuit of vanishing
and found instead
a form of staying
that cannot be undone.