someone new

i am someone new
someone i don't recognize
i love the hair
i love the smile
but i don't know where
the latter came from

i have been reborn
and need to figure out
who i am all over again

when you first meet someone
you say, "how do you do?"
you smile and nod and
try to care about the answer
that you know isn't real

but, that isn't how you
greet yourself, i'm sure
then again, i would not know

i have become a world unexplored
myself an unexperienced traveler
and i don't know where to start

i look into the mirror and, for once,
i like what i see
but who, i wonder
is that,
behind the eyes?

along this thin line

along this thin line
I balance
skipping ever so slightly
to catch your eye as a
distraction, hoping you'll
miss the fear
dancing across my smile,
leaking out of my eyes

i want you to see me
so much that
i don't

i am not

if you had asked me who i was
(before) well,
i was taught to never
say, "I don't know."
so,
i would have had an answer for you

perhaps in poetic form
because that is what i do
but

"i am" poems are
overrated

i am not the
scratch of words across the page
or the pencil that just won't sharpen
i am a person
a writer at my very core,
strip away all of my layers
and words are what you will find

i am not the
tree that died to give
space to new life
i am a person
who lets everyone
trample all over me

i am not the
saxophone falling flat on every note
or the one that will give you sounds
that'll make you feel at home
i am a person
who needs music playing at all times
who feels the emotions of
every song in their bones
who plays the sax so lovely and yet
sometimes, so bad

if you had asked me who i was
(before) well,
i was taught to never
say, "I don't know."
so,
i would have had an answer for you

that was before,
before the day i heard a whisper
floating amongst the trees
telling me that i would
grow to unlearn
so much of what had been taught to me
before i could think for myself
i would do this in order to
reshape the knowledge
so that it held more people safe inside

people have more layers
than what they like or what they do

if you ask me who i am
(today) well,
i will have to say, "i don't know"
but, please, don't walk away
before i get a chance to add
that i am beginning to find out
(and that is a beautiful thing)

wanting the truth

i want
the truth, i claim
that it can't hurt

ignoring the truth
doesn't make it
go away, i say

fear of
losing control
fuels this
(something that is
already a wildfire)

i'm afraid
that i will wish
for ignorance
in a moment of
weakness

i'm terrified

i will regret
knowing a truth

i claim i want
the truth no matter what, but
i'm afraid.

i'm terrified.