I woke up on the floor of the tallest minaret in the citadel.
Naked, fetal, confused, hugging my knees as if they were a friend I thought I’d lost.
You found me there, staring out the window, looking up at the blue sky.
And though you called my name, I did not want to answer.
This moment was not about you.
It was about me.
It was about becoming myself.
It was about being unbecoming, and unbecoming being, and wanting to grow my butterfly wings and fly away.
I never wanted your help.
In that moment, I was past, and present, and future.
I saw everything together, in a swirl of reality, and I didn’t know where anything began or ended.
I was about me.
And so I kept you waiting when you called what you thought was my name.
It wasn’t my name anymore.
It was a token of a lost dream that I had awoken from.
And it was time for me to fly.
— Clio 04.23.21