Who are you?
Is the you you think you know authentic?
Do you examine who you are, the portrait you portray,
the person we’ve all come to know and believe it’s you?
Can you fly yet?
Does your consciousness expand on every level?
Can you slither through solid walls manipulating your molecules?
Can you immediately change your shape by simply wanting to?
Can you summon all your power into one pulsating wish until
you clearly hear your dead lover speaking?
Can you appear anywhere you want for whatever reason you want
just by focusing on it?
Can you walk on water yet?
pattyv
Characterizations:
well written
Ah Patty, the me I know and the me that’s out there – which is the more authentic?
Good question!
First, I love the image you use above your poetry. Then, I confess, I read this several times. It intrigued me, I had to think about it, process it. Who are we, really? You provoked me to think about that. Can we walk on water, change our molecules? How do we project ourselves to others? Fascinating.
Patti, it is so challenging to find your authentic self. Although I do find that the older I get, the closer I come to that person. Pretense falls away. I care less and less what others think of me.
This poem made me remember and regret all the decades I spend hiding my natures from myself. I told myself that it was fear of other people’s judgement, but was it really fear of my own?
This is a provocative piece of poetry, Patty, and one that put me into a self-reflective mode before I was halfway through it. I don’t think we give enough thought to who our authentic self really is, but I’ve been working on it through the years and am getting close to figuring it out. I believe it was Aristotle who placed such great importance on a person’s authenticity and said it is one thing that no one can take away from us. But I’ve learned sometimes I have tried to give it up, though, in the desire to be someone else.