"Antinoun", Janice Heng
I never wanted to be noun. I could be
all sorts of verbs. Not -er
but thing-which: the thingness
contingent, happenstance. To be
the happening, a friendly gerund
around only as long as needed.
Or even an adjective: kinder,
mutable. Yet pronoun itself
presupposes. To break a cage
is to first acknowledge it. Even
as pronoun I am trapped in story.
Every story a world. Every world
a locked room. The body
cools. I am still looking for an exit.