Cannot Do Poem by johannes lewinsky

Cannot do cannot life
According to you do
or you or you or you
or any other life you would
that I would
according to you do

am
am what I am
indissoluble am
the constituent bits of me that have
over years and days accrued
and cannot any longer these bits of me
disentangle
from the me that I have

become

am become this me that has been
from the meetings and the leavings that I have
with you and with you and with all
the various me's you elicited
distilled

so that now is a congruence that once was
all dissolution dissipated and
a refusal to backward glance
at the me's might have been had I adhered
conclusively to

any one of the myriad me's and you's
you solicited

is time is time is
to surrender to
the bits of me have hankered
after something other than
conceivable was

another me could never be
other than I was at the time
and was not
workable in the instant
that was
given to us to be

because how could
none of you could
not one you
the totality of me
there isn't one could
the totality of all the disparate bits of me
accept I accept

and is

this uncompromising refusal to relinquish
any one of the disparate bits of me has led
to this moment now where cannot accept
any longer this incorrigible
need in me

to make a life with