In the muddle and the mess that is my mind
I could do with some perspective
Someone else's perception
of this one-sided, two way conversation
that's been going on for hours
days
years
I can not be objective
about the very personal subject of
Me.

My life is clearly complicated
I am my self and all the rest of me
and we are a confused and cross-wired bunch

The answers lie inside
I try to dig them out
but when it comes right down to it
I lose the nerve
the will
the reason and I retreat
run back
to on-the-surface sanity
so as far as you can see, I'm happy
look at me!
I smile in all your snaps and photographs
and sometimes the twinkle is sincere
but what we have here
is a well-practised masking of emotion
Make me look more like the me I
imagine myself to be
so that, by the time I get there,
I can provide the fools with proof
that I was never afraid
never ashamed
never appalled or unsure or unsettled
never shattered
or shocked
never wrong, all right;
every night was my party -
and every place was my home.