I Am Not My Past

[ecofreak20]

I am not my past.
The sands of time can be easily vitrified.
**looking on to the rest of the poem, this sounds like a throwaway line, like it's trying to be prophetic. I'd like to see it reworked. Ask yourself what you were trying to say here again.
The Ink upon paper
Knows of only one moment.

I find difficulty defining my present self.
I scroll through pages,
Research my experiences, **history?

Only to find outdated definitions.

The dictionary lies on my shelf,
Although I handle it carefully.
The binding is worn,
And the pages are fraying.

A book with every meaning
Even defines itself.
Still, I lack the words
to define my own being. **me. To use this as a hanging line might be of interest to you. The stress might be DUM da DUM DUM, "To define me." It would break up what rhythm is there, and may bring forward the stress I am hearing about not being able to define yourself that much more.

I’ve been told I am priceless,
But is that really true?

(might I interest you in separating the following into a new stanza?)
My eyes can perceive
The price tag of pupils.
My ears can discern
My cost as a child.
My mind understands
To be deemed worthwhile,
I must lose myself,
My love and my style. **I don't think you need this line. I think "I must lose myself." as a hanging line is saying exactly what you need to here, and "my love and my style," come as unnecessary addendums for me. I also really like what you did if we zoom out a little, "My eyes can perceive/ My ears can discern/ My mind understands/ I must lose myself." Being able to deconstruct poems like this draws me in, and allows me as a reader to consider themes that are less obvious. This is your denouement, you're saying you have to lose yourself to define yourself. 

I could sell all these things,
Make millions losing myself– **on the concept of me (?). You have that you must lose yourself above, and it loses power being used here.
Reduced to a number.
I’ve become a binary,
A collection of ones and zeroes,
encoded for the 

(line break) exploitation of my own self. **me. OR **selves (a callback to shelf/shelves, before) if you wanted to turn the perspective outward for a second.

01001001 00100000 01100011 01101111 01110101 01101100 01100100 00100000 01100111 01101111 00100000 01100001 01100010 01101111 01110101 01110100 00100000 01101101 01111001 00100000 01101100 01101001 01100110 01100101 00100000 01110100 01101000 01101001 01110011 00100000 01110111 01100001 01111001 00111011 00001010 01001001 01110100 00100000 01100110 01100101 01100101 01101100 01110011 00100000 01110011 01101111 00100000 01101101 01110101 01100011 01101000 00100000 01110011 01101001 01101101 01110000 01101100 01100101 01110010 00101110 00001010 01010100 01101000 01101001 01101110 01100111 01110011 00100000 01110111 01101001 01101100 01101100 00100000 01100011 01101000 01100001 01101110 01100111 01100101 00101100 00001010 01000010 01110101 01110100 00100000 01001001 00100000 01110011 01101000 01100001 01101100 01101100 00100000 01110010 01100101 01101101 01100001 01101001 01101110 11100010 10000000 10010100 00001010 01000001 00100000 01100010 01101001 01101110 01100001 01110010 01111001 00100000 01110000 01110010 01101001 01110011 01101111 01101110 01100101 01110010 00101110

(noting a line break here)

Translation:
(I could go about my life this way;
It feels so much simpler.
Things will change,
But I shall remain—
A binary prisoner.) **I don't think you need rely on text/writing explanations here. Just having an italicized moment under the binary is enough for me as a reader.

That’s how the writer of this poem feels.
You can’t blame them for the way everything went down.
Although many may say the writer and I are the same,
the ones and zeroes do vary;
I am not the writer of this poem.

**I want more from this stanza, please expand on this thought loop in particular, there's something very bold you can put here that's just waiting for the right words.

This poem represents who I was,
but it’s only a singular moment in time—
melted down to a few words.
It’s been 46 lines since I’ve told you:
I am not my past.

Okay, hear me out. What if you took the binary out, and made it its own separate poem? I believe it deserves every bit of space as a piece, but the form interrupts the rest of the poem irrevocably for me. Form is an entirely separate exploration, and I LOVE the idea of you using binary as a an expressive form for poetry. I don't know of another poet doing that at this time. You might even be able to make ekphrastic works out of binary poems. Oh my god that would be so cool, I'm geeking out. Alright, signing off for now. This is a really interesting reflection on how your existence changes from moment to moment, how defining oneself is transient. It's an idea I could sit in for hours and contemplate. Thank you for sharing this!