I am a declarer. Frontal lobe lists: making plans on impulse. Today I will go deeper. Be wiser, quieter. Be her, being you. Sylvia Plath, Gertrude Stein is what I am now. Questions I’m Scared to Ask: How many times can I begin a sentence with “starting tomorrow, I will”? Is it worth it to organize thoughts with blue pens? And am I bright? What I Have Concluded About my Body: Sometimes my limbs become those of a crane: folded. My hands are people and with them, about them, for them, I have written pages. Received as mediocre. Couldn’t let go of those hands. I could hold one hand in the other as I cross the street. Sew a quilt of my lists, crumpled into paper fabric. Write a new list with fingers alive. Cross my fingers as I speak, either to lie or to hope. Make hours into things I can wrap my fingers around and keep in a drawer. Most of my days I wait; time uses me more than I use it. Mediocre. What makes me compress myself into unwelcoming shapes like an origami paper crane with missing instructions for the folds? A new list: Reasons to Not be a Crane. I am a declarer and a writer of lists. To myself I declare: this month I will enter a new life. Let others’ words soak into the fleshy crevices of my eardrums. Listen to those unfolding themselves from their own origami shapes, go deeper. Respond, small and few, quietly. Avoid extraneous words in each declaration. Be wiser, quieter. A declaration: on my right hip, a bruise, on my left, a pen mark. A declaration: both blue.