[Issue 2025.72]

‘Unformed’, Veda Villiers

Art © 2025 Melkorka

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I was a man.
A man in his mid-thirties,
hair dark,
hands rough from years of toil,
the sharp edge
of a wedding ring.

Yesterday I was a woman—
short hair,
arms too thin,
lips too full.
I was someone’s lover
until the morning’s dawn.

This morning,
I was a grandmother
with silver hair,
wrinkled hands that trembled
when I picked up the mug.
And now—

I am someone who might have been you.
I can feel the shape of me,
as if I am wearing you,
like an old coat, too tight.
But the seams,
they pull apart,
stitch by stitch.

What is my name?
What am I supposed to be?
A body without identity,
no photograph to keep,
no past to hold.
The doctors said
it’s genetic,
something in my cells—
but what does that mean?

They want to study me,
break me down to data,
quantify this sickness
that moves through me like fire.
I am a disease
that cannot be cured.

Last week,
I was a child,
barefoot on the grass,
too small
to know that
people would stare.

Now I am a man again.
This time,
without the strength I had before,
skin soft as a baby’s,
a voice too high.
And a stranger’s name on my tongue.

I don’t belong to myself.
Each day
I try to hold the shape I am given—
a brief moment of clarity,
a glimpse of something familiar,
something I can say is mine.

But I wake up,
and my face is not my face anymore.
And I wear someone else’s history,
their hurts,
their loves,
their failures.
I wonder—
if I stand still,
will the world change around me?
Will I finally,
finally,
become the person I was meant to be?

I am
            slipping
                        between forms,
                                    slipping away
                        from what you think I am.
            But it doesn’t matter.
It never did.
I am no one.
And yet,
I am everyone.
At the end.

© 2025 Veda Villiers

[Issue 2025.72]

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