within (and apart from) myself

To what extent am I made up of context?
How much of me hangs in relation to everything else?
I am entirely copyrighted material with fingerprints and creases
and cardboard and
spirit strung up and knotted together taut with wire
plucked and prerecorded
all muscle and all breath
all of it inscrutable and sloppy and intentional and exact
eyeballs and advertisements and imitations
How much of me is you and how much of you is me?
it happened before and is happening again now
today and tomorrow, everything
simultaneous and improvised and correct, everything
stained glass and bubbles and visible light and vantage points all popping at once, through
pinholes and caricatures and comparisons and apocalypse
it's performed; eternal, until
swallowed then replaced repeatedly with perfect
replicas and written in screenplays

It all makes more sense framed and staged with a canon timeline and
a track-list translated
to everyone at once and it was rehearsed
for so long and it was perfect. It wasn’t random.

Even though the shadow didn’t match the shape and something happened backwards
it was tangible. I held it in my hands.