Leaving me for me

Some days I think

Just today,   just for today

I want to consider myself

Without reading into the palmed sniggers

Without stopping mid-step to check myself

Worrying that what they see

Might make them report me

Cry out for the police

An imposter, a fake, is in our midst

Like I don’t belong here

And maybe I never did

 

I’m walking around

With a cloak over my head

Ducking into shadows, corners

Hoping they don’t spot

What I can already see

Because I’m a vampire

And sun isn’t something

I'm supposed to partake in

 

Because I’m not them

Shacking, wagging playfully

In the bright cool limelight

 

Unlike them

I don’t, can’t, identify

With A, B or C

I won’t call myself something

And throw away the key

 

I won’t be the matronly housewife

Who covers up a wall of ice and hurt

With blank furniture

Who can tell the movers to

“Lock the rest up in some lonely loft”

To never be opened up

To never be found

 

So, if I could

Choose only one thing

I would take my identity

And say it wasn’t defined

By a label

I would say that

“none of the above”

Doesn’t even begin to cover

Who I am

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