Who am I if I'm not myself?

Maybe I'm just naive.  Do I just do what other people say?  Can't I think for myself?  Am I a shadow of the women and men that have passed by this reflecting pool?  Am I ripples in the pond that just allow others to extend further from the place the lost their lockets?  The stone at the seafloor is covered in moss.  I'll carry your message for you so that you don't have to get up and stretch your legs.

Why won't I stand up for myself?  Is it because I've had others carry my message for me in the same way I hope to carry yours?  Is it because my childhood only encouraged authentic expression of a limited number of emotions, thoughts, and points of view.  Is it because my personality airs on the side of half empty rather than half full and I'm beyond repair.  Is it because every seven years my body is brand new and this brand is bruised?

I want so desperately to live inside the profundity of another.  I want someone to dig deep into my chest and cradle the cavernous heart from this cadaver.  Lift my life source from my body and place me into a new machine.  Surely I'm breathing; my heart is still beating, but where is my arrow pointing?  Who can I ask about myself if I don't even know me?

I dig so early without even surveying the land around me.  I spill into all surrounding land without a second thought as to where my mess is landing.  Do I stain the souls of sisters and brothers?  Do my words fall on deaf ears?  Are the words I'm saying paragraphs that are better saved for intimate spirits?  Am i picking apart my scabs only to bathe in dirty saltwater baths drawn by strangers?

How can you know?  You don't know me?  Still, that won't keep me from asking you.  That won't tell filter my face further.  That won't teach me to lay still and consider myself truthfully.  When I think about who I am, I often overthink or don't think at all.  I'm a walking corpse, a zombie with an appetite for beating hearts with just enough brains.  I'm a work in progress that's somehow already complete.

Too Little Too

I woke up.  I didn't have to. You didn't have to offer me anything.  I didn't do anything to earn it.  In fact, much of my life is more evaporated vapors than glimmers of life shining in the shadows.  I don't know why You do this, but it sure does help.

Why do I only ever seem to bleed at night.  I can't be the only one who sits, lonely in the shadows.  I can't be the only one here.  The blank wall doesn't capture my reflection.  The empty sheets are a greater reflection of my fulfilled purpose.  I've woken up with enough time to tell myself I'll get up soon only to fall asleep while Saturn's rings spin around me.

You all spin around me.  Though I endlessly search, I have yet to have found me.  Pay 50 cents and try to grab me.  I'm out of reach but not for lack of trying.  Reaching for a hand when you're unconscious is less than grasping for straws.

Now I'm writing into it instead of writing out.  When I'm too tired the ideas are flooded and when my fingers work the graphite in my mind needs sharpening.  What gives?