The Architecture of Becoming

1. Begin by writing three lines about a single, physical object you have kept for a long time, such as a worn key or a chipped ceramic bowl. You might focus on how its surface has changed or what it has endured to remain in your hands. 2.

Compose a stanza where this object starts a quiet metamorphosis, turning into something organic or fluid. Consider how the pulse of a living thing might feel if it started to vibrate inside something once solid and still. 3.

Explore a surreal perspective by describing the scene as if looking through a prism, where light bends and splits the room into lush, overlapping layers. You could describe how the same corner of the room looks different from two slightly shifted angles, capturing a sense of parallax. 4.

Sketch the feeling of "holy confusion" that comes when an old version of yourself begins an undoing to make room for the new. Imagine this transition not as a frightening loss, but as a vast and intimate seasonality, like a garden finding its green strength beneath the winter soil. 5.

Draft a final image that holds two paradoxes together, such as a moment of great vulnerability that is also a moment of absolute perseverance.

End the poem by noticing one small, grounded detail—perhaps the way the light catches a single thread or the temperature of the air—leaving the reader with a sense of quiet wonder.

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