A walk through the journey of life,
taking a stroll on the beach side
Looking into oblivion as the sea meets the sky
The dark of nights engulfs my soul
poisoning my mind and raising questions.

"Who am I?"
"What do I stand for?"
"Do I have a purpose?"

The questions echo in my head,
the darkness mocks me with silence
and then it struck me.
My existence was never  meant to be.

I’ve grown numb
And accustomed to
Whatever that was deemed
Extraordinary.
Does this make me dull
If the complexity of the universe
Has become
Ordinary?
No longer a stranger or an enigma
To my inner experience?
Does this make me boring
If I no longer find joy
In discovering something
Unsurprising?
For when you
Constantly dwell and live
In the unknown
Is it really a big deal
To find something unexpected?
I mean... what did you expect anyway?

I am more interested in human interactions
In the consequences
And the causes
Of my actions
And I have internalised the outside world
And the outside wonders and
Discipline and harmony
Has become my quest and
My childish discovery.

What is in a name?
An identifier. Christine. Paul. Bernard.
A sense of uniqueness. Foxy. The Rock. Buddy.
A personality. John. Chad. Karen.
A name is something to hold onto.

What is my name?
A label to keep me concrete when people forget
A phrase to pull me back down when I drift
An identity so that I don't mold into everyone else
My name keeps me together

But what does my name sound like?
I forgot where I placed my strengths
I forgot the way it was shaped to my body
My person slips away from the letters as they form into your mouth
and get lost in the bottomless sea of identifiers

Who am I?
Billboards and signs that paint "fragile" across a face like mine
Small, petite, figures that whisper "prey" and warn me of the big bad wolves
Unfamiliar faces that tell me that I am "too much" as my bones grind against them and their hands try to cup me smaller
there is nothing to keep me from vanishing

Who am I?
Worker # 187, making a dime as they make a dollar?
A father's daughter, a person to be handed and never to stand on it's own?
Am I my weakest moments?
Am I my triumphs?

Who am I?
My own mocking voice screaming, giggling, obscenities before I catch myself
My own motherly tone re-directing me from the bad roots in my childhood
I am this thing and then I am another
We are so inconsistent, as people

We forget to keep our names close to our hearts
To choose our own identities,
let ourselves remind each other that we are
who we choose to be.

My name, it echoes against the cages of my body
and it wraps around me
reassuring me, reminding me, piecing me back together
breathing life back into me.

Amid the rubble
Of four dim millennia peeled back
A square of carved steatite lay
Lifted
Gently as a gossamer hope
To reveal
That mythic beast
A single horn curving
From its striated head
Whose fame reached Grecian ears
From Indus bed
Across miles & years
Leaving an inkmark murmur

Who are you?
a Samaritan?
a saint?
an evil person?

Who are you?
that's right
you might think you are useless
trust me been there

But you are the person you say you are.
so pick up that mirror
and tell the world who is boss.
Because you are  
glorious
Magnificent
Lovable

In a glass room
at the top of a mountain
I learned how to speak.
At 10,000 feet
I learned the shape of words
and how they can sound
so much like wind
persisting, wailing against
the impossible odds
of sturdy, dismissive construction.
If this is not a home,
then what is it?
A shrine atop this mountain?
An offering to the gods of
sunrise, sunset, thunderstorm,
and man-made radio equipment?
Man-made fire?
There are certainly plenty
who climb to worship at its feet.
Surely nothing, save from
the mountain itself,
could send this glass room
tumbling down the path
I just walked to reach it.