Unbecoming

Sierra Offutt

The crux of dying slowly is this:

There is no fall—
no drop-off—
no sense
of the abyss,
but rather—a gentle slide down
into the eventual cavern
of unbeing.

The crux of dying slowly is this:

Your death, like a lover,
familiar and fond,
flirts, caresses, converses, wraps you in
her tender embrace, lingering in
a squeezing, suffocating
goodbye.

The crux of dying slowly is this:

You do not notice
your own unraveling.
The phrase “falling apart
at the seams” implies
a sense of unspooling
selfhood, of splitting open.
Rather, you fray and forget
until not a thread
or stitch of you
remains.

The crux of dying slowly is this:

You were gone long before
the end.