The Structure

My friend asked me what I'd do with all this time,

and I stood there silent, couldn't find a rhyme

or an answer, which felt the same—

both empty, both without a name.

Three months of waking without an alarm,

three months of no one asking me to perform,

three months of hours that stretched like string

pulled taut, and I realized I didn't know a thing

about who I was without the structure.

I thought freedom would be a feature

I could recognize, but instead

it looked like floating, like being spread

too thin across empty days, like losing

the grid that held me, like choosing

to live in a space with no walls.

My friend waited for me to call

it something—purpose, peace, growth.

I told her I didn't know, and both

of us understood that without

someone else's calendar, I was left without

a reason to be anything at all.

Now I wake and there's nothing to fill

the hours. Now I understand the skill

of being someone was just

doing what I was told. Now I'm stuck

in the gap between that person and whoever I am.