Lost

I am not me

I went out one day

And found that I had lost myself

But where? I failed to notice.

There was no sudden change

Or pin-pointed moment

of awareness of its misplacement

Did it fall out of my pocket?

Slip out with an exhalation of breath?

There was no abrupt instant of consciousness

Heralding its stinging and ungrateful departure

It just crept off,

Snuck away and left me for pastures new

Leaving only the slow-burning realisation of having been abandoned,

The weight of my own confused bereavement

And me:

A shiny red apple without its core

A hollowed out tree unable to bear the weight of the leaves upon its branches.

Anguishing at the fork in the road.

The decision:

To move forward, craft a new self

or turn back in search of the old?