I think far too often

There's no room for all of it in my bone skull

Some get pushed out into words

Mostly the shallow, people pleasing, floating on the surface things that human conversation lives off of

Some get written down in books that I won't read

Solid thoughts made of chemical liquid and broken trees, proving my desire to exist still once I'm gone

Some thoughts get lost, and found again

Then lost once more amid other thoughts, other facets of life

I am all these thoughts

And they have led me to a few conclusions

I am my flaws

Of which I am both painfully aware of and constantly, blissfully running from

Pushing aside, ignoring and also dwelling on, like this hangnail on my thumb that I can't stop pulling at. 

I am my words

My spoken facade that seeks to paint me in their eyes with thick colors 

So they cannot see the parts that are dark, lackluster, brittle

I am my filters, my stretched truths

All the manipulations I orchestrate, all the minds I try to ever-so-slightly bend

I seek to be what I value, what I admire

If not in my actual self, then in the self that is created by the opinions and attitudes and conciousnesses of others

I am an enigma to myself

Unexplainable, I am knowledge that is unattainable 

The closer you are to a painting, the less you can see the whole

Past the rising and falling paint marks

I sit inside, under the color and the weight of the brushstrokes

On their eyelids, in their minds

It's hard to understand it all, to see it all

With unstained eyes, and maybe I never will

But above all, I am content

With the mess, the uncertainty, the facades

It all speaks the truth

And that's not a bad thing to be.