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.
About the author
Sierra Offutt is a writer, editor, and instructor of English born and based in subrural Maryland, where the majority of her childhood neighbors were horses, corn, and the silent residents of the cemetery across the street. She received her MFA in creative writing from the University of New Orleans. When she is not teaching or writing, she can typically be found among the herbal, medicinal, and edible plants in her backyard garden.
Sierra is a Harford County resident who spent time in and around Baltimore growing up.