Everyone's always telling you to find out who you are.
"There's a fully known and understood 'you' out there somewhere."
It's in books and in poems, a deeper desire of humanity.

But I've taken months and years out of my life to find this 'me'.
I've been searching for so long, and nothing.
The paths I've been walking down have all been so empty.

So a short while ago I decided to quit looking.
Suddenly, I realized the irony of finding out who you are.

You can never find out who you are if you're always looking for someone you're not.

Maybe I'll try to accept who I am and see where that gets me.

I’m on the boat again, rocking back and forth amid
the restless waves and torrential rains.
You were always wild, that’s nothing new.
I look out into the beautiful colors of the distant horizons,
like a rising sun-shined hope.
You were one I always looked forward to seeing,
no matter the occasion.
I’m called by a timid voice pulling me to my feet,
coming from a place far away.
You were always so welcoming, with a social gravity all of your own.
I step out onto the deck and the waves rise, then I lose my footing,
falling into the depths.
You were always so beautifully deep in so many of the best ways.
I’m drowning now, the water filling my lungs and carrying me slowly further from the boat.
Wait… I can’t breathe.
Although, I suppose you do have that effect on me.

I snap out of my daze to find you still sitting there,
a smile resting on your face.
Your smile pulls me out of my body every time.
I take another look at your eyes and decide I want to make them mine, pulling you in close.
Your body burns up my stars and directs my spirit’s flowing waters.
I tangle your golden tresses through my hand and realize my hand is living to its own.
You have a way of taking my will, and I don’t hesitate to surrender it.
I look to the clock hung upon my wall
and notice in its place a grey haze.
You feel like eternity in my arms, and I’ve never wanted it more.
I’m leaning in to kiss you, and my body refuses to breathe air,
taking in your life as my own.
Wait… I can’t breathe.
But I don’t really care.

How did I not see this before?
How did I miss this great desire?
To think, you were only my best friend.
Now you're my only.
I’m sorry it took me this long.
You’re patient, though.

You have known the love of God,
He’s called you to His throne.
The law of death is crucified,
His life is now your own.

Yet flesh appeals through painful cry,
“Do not forget my needs!”
You hear the whispers of a lie,
“Have you been truly freed?”

Oh, wretched man, the law of sin has governed you too long.
Are your desires held through trial?
Oh, wretched man, your spirit grieves the work that you have done.
Who will deliver you?
Who will deliver the defiled?

There is a man of love divine
Who came to earth to die.
He asks that you would follow Him
And know eternal life.

These things I do desire to see
But I cannot find the will.
Yet even from upon the tree
He smiles upon me still.

“Oh, wretched man, the law of sin has governed you too long.
You know your freedom has been won.
Oh, wretched man, your spirit aches as proof of what I’ve done.
I have delivered you.
I have delivered you, my son.”

Is there a word for when I’m so lonely
that my body writhes and I begin to cry?
Is there a word for when my solitude, my prison,
causes me tangible agony?
Is there a word for when my soul is drowning
in that infinitely black abyss of seclusion?
Is there a word for when I desire someone
to know me better than I know myself?
Is there a word for when all I want
is to stare into your eyes for all of eternity?
Is there a word for when all that I am is screaming out
for all that you are?
Is there a word for wanting to be wholly overtaken by a singular word that can express my innermost pain and desires in all their complexities?

I know in my heart that there must be, for my existence
has been searching.
It is such a word that if spoken would rend me apart,
spirit from body.
Yet here I persist, longing to be torn, if only to know you better.

His family had moved again.
New country, new home, new school.
It was September.
He walked the hallways, headphones blasting, towards the first class of his first day.
As he walked, he crashed into a girl, and they both flew to the ground.
His mind went blank.
As he regained his senses, he looked towards the girl.
Her eyes were green, and her hair was auburn.
Her glasses rested upon her nose, and her clothes were horribly, yet somehow perfectly, mismatched.
He saw a spark of something, perhaps a spirit close to his.
He quickly picked up her books and her papers and started to apologize again and again.
She, too, apologized several times and told him that she was fine.
Their stumbling about on the floor attracted the laughter of the students around them.
He could tell he would not be popular here, though it seemed the girl was not either.
As it turns out, the girl was headed to the very same class as he was.
They sat next to each other during class in awkward silence.
Later that day, he snuck outside to eat his sandwich beneath a tree.
And so, he found out, had she.
Not wanting to make this more awkward than it already was, he decided it best to speak.
And so, he spoke, but only a name.
She replied to him with a name, but she added a “please do sit.”
So, he sat and he shared a bit about his life, though not of his own desire, but hers.
She, too, shared about her life.
After a few minutes of questions, she realized she would not get anywhere quickly with him.
She decided to ask him to meet her down by the lake later in the evening.
A lake he knew nothing about.
In the back of his mind he knew that they would be friends.
He thus agreed, and so it was that they met later that day to talk.
They did not talk about their stories, but about their experiences.
When came October, the two sat by each other on a cliffside, looking out unto the horizon.
She said she liked the sunset.
He said he liked the sunrise.
The two met somewhere in between.
On one snowy January night, she ran away into the woods.
He followed her closely behind.
She danced there in the moonlight, the snow cascading down her fiery hair.
He, too, danced, though he knew he danced poorly.
She grabbed his hand and they danced together through the night.
When April came, he picked a daisy from the ground and presented it to her.
She put it in her auburn hair, a symbol of the connection they now shared.
June arrived, and his mother and father sat him down.
They had promised this move was final, but they had lied to him that August morning.
He ran to her house where they wept for hours, as she held his head close to her heart.
His spirit was fractured in late July, as he boarded an airplane going nowhere.
His mind went blank.
As he regained his senses, he looked towards the girl.
Her eyes were green, and her hair was auburn.
Her glasses rested upon her nose, and her clothes were horribly, yet somehow perfectly, mismatched.
He saw a spark of something, perhaps a spirit close to his.
And so, as quickly as he could, he stood and walked away.
That year he would have no friends.
That year he would have no soul.
In October, he sat on a cliffside alone.
He had liked the sunrise once, but he always knew it would set no matter what he did.
January was cold, and as he sat in wooded land under the moonlight he tried to cry.
Not because he felt sad, but because he knew he could never truly feel sadness again.
There was a flower one April morning near the school’s entrance.
It was a daisy.
He did not see it, nor did he care to.
When July came around, his empty spirit remained empty, and his pain changed not one bit.
He made a terrible sacrifice that year.
But it was his alone to bear.