Who Am I?

Who am I?—

Quite the question

I hold before my Self.

Do I speak of my many happy times,

Or recall my personal Hell?

Do I talk about breaking fists on walls,

Black and blue and bloody?

Do I tell about the time I betrayed myself

And broke a man’s jaw for money?

Do I talk about broke and struggling to survive,

Moldy shoes upon my feet?—

Or how about broke and loving to be alive,

Giving my last dollar to a stranger on the street?

Do I speak of broken Hearts—

All the Love I’ve turned away,

Or should I talk about the Love I choose to cherish

And the woman I want to stay with?

I could speak of my sense of humor—

That’s one thing that has always been here,

Or should I admit how that same sense of humor

Often masks my inner Fears?

Should I reveal how my thoughts

Come in such a torrent

That it nearly drove me insane,

Or how I learned to love and use the many Ideas

Like blessings flooding my brain?

Should I illustrate my love for Nature

And exploring the beauty of Mother Earth,

Or those many years since junior high

When only alcohol seemed to give life worth?

Should I tell them about standing behind the grocery store

Catching meat my dad dug from the trash?

Could I hit it home if I spoke about worrying

My friends from school might drive past?

Do I talk about my father’s battle with drugs

That landed him in prison as I grew up

And how they let him out and after ten years of sobriety

Even then he gave up?

Would anyone understand if I said I gave him a chance

After he did his time?

Would they know what I meant

If I told them some people

Can never escape The Prison in their Mind?

Should I tell how they found him

Overdosed in some shitty hole of a room?

And how after death I finally found Forgiveness

But don’t know if he ever knew it?

Should I talk about my mom

Whose own thirst for liquor

Took so much from my brothers and me?

Or is it much more important that she worked three jobs day and night

So we all could have enough to eat?

Do I tell about her boyfriend

Who used to beat himself in the face when they got into fights?

Do I tell about how I learned my own angry behavior

From this man who I never liked?

I could bring up all my friends who died young

Leaving such heavy scars on My Soul,

But isn’t it better to talk about the ones who are still here,

Who make my life so rich and full?

The truth is there’s too much to me

To ever fit on one page.

I guess who I am

Is something that I’m

Still pondering to this day.

I appreciate life and have so many Ideas

That it must be true that “therefore I am.”

With patience and time

I’m opening my mind

To a Self I can respect and understand.

I am Anger and Peace

Love and Hate—

All the yings and yangs in God’s intricate Plan.

I’m searching for meaning while living life to its fullest,

And I guess that defines who I am…