Paring is a poetic meditation on the processes of change. The title refers to the act of paring -a peeling away of layers and parts toward the formation of a self. To that end, my collection asks what it means to do this work of paring over time: What gets left behind or violently removed in the pursuit of growth, particularly as a queer, disabled person of color whose histories and experiences are so often marked on the skin? How do we reconcile the fact that what we pare away may have once enveloped us, protected us but no longer? Paring also suggests the fruit: this book sits with what has already flowered and what has not yet come to fruition, all of which will come to rot after flourishing.