I decided today to sit back
And take a look at my life
Not only from the out
But also from the inside

Like an innocent bystander
I'll take myself a gander
And what it is I find
I'll set it down in rhyme

I notice when I do look on the out
I'm always quick to throw out a smile
Pretty much all of the while
I guess a smile is just my style

The in is the one quick with the wit
That's one thing I must admit
Sometimes gets me into the thick
When it really comes down to it

For the inside to come clean
I must mean what I say and say what I mean
There's no doubt about them there beans
I hope you know what it is that I mean

I'm never much serious about
Anything life has to through out
I do love to clown and joke around
Hang with me and that you'll find out

But it's not always all fun and games
As the outside of me deteriorates
But that my friend is all of our fate
As the older we get and our hour is late

I look at the outside of me
And see an old man in the later degree
But in on the in playfully
Is the child still inside of me

That's pretty much who I am
Living this life the best that I can
On the inners and outers I'll play my hand
Wherever I tumble, wherever I land

So this is what I've come up with
When I took a look at my life
Not only from the out
But also from the inside

The truth is, I’m not really sure who I am.  She told us to draw ourselves and then to draw our souls; so I drew my face scratched and uneven, just as I’ve always seen it, and frowned at the result both in the mirror and on the paper.  The only soul I’ve ever really known was the one that shone through the strokes of the keys I punched, the scrawling of ink on paper in mismatched arrays of awkward thoughts, disorientated and unorganized, shaded different spews of emotion and rearranged through the lens of ever last viewer’s eye.  Even so, this soul that is composed of words that defined me painted a picture vivid in its contrast, though blurry from both afar and close enough to squint, no details able to be made out.  These words that have wrapped around my soul rubbed raw from the time my skin first flinched at the cool March air cannot be deciphered by their author, though I know somehow that their letters flowing into one another say more than any curve of my face ever could.  These words are black and white, two extremes crafted in the pallet of the Universe’s toolshed, and perhaps that’s exactly what I am.  Black or white.  I’m dark and lost and scrounging for some rusting wall or tree branch to cling to as to ensure the shimmering waves, onyx and charcoal in their nature with the flow of blood in its spine, do not flood into my mouth at a rate in which is too quick to balance myself upon them, or, I’m white, drifting snow from a cloud scraping the vast expanse of brilliant blue gazing as a sky above all the world, pure, innocent, unscathed with the potential for creation in vibrancies yet unknown, or to be ripped to bits, scattered amongst piles of cream and autumn leaves drained of their color beneath months of shivering frost.  And so, perhaps any physical representation of my being would be all wrong, because that’s not what I am.  Myself, my soul, it resides in the murky depths of heights I’ve yet to discover, tethered endlessly and uncertain among the caverns of my inners, pink and mushy, stirred and ******, untouched from the harsh light of a world encased in brevity.