Who Are You?

“Who are you?”

That was the first question in

Mcleod’s Getting To Know Yourself.

Ironic, isn’t it,

that a book that’s supposed to

help you find yourself expects you to tell it

who you are?

I could write my name in the blank line,

but I’m sure that’s not what Mcleod meant-

since there are seven more blank lines.

I look up at the ceiling,

pondering.

Who am I?

I wonder aloud.

Just then,

I notice the sparkles on the ceiling I’m looking at.

I’ve lived here for three years and never realized

I’ve been living under an artificial Home Depot sky.

I come back to the task at hand.

I put pen to paper-

the handwriting I hate that is mine comes out in a

beautiful fuschia gel shade.

I am a person who talks to herself,

gets distracted by sparkly things,

and is, at times, completely un-observant.

I nod, satisfied.

I think Mcleod would approve.

I continue.

I am terrible at making decisions.

I pause.

But once I make one, I do not change my mind.

Not entirely true,

since I was once married,

and am no longer.

What Mcleod doesn’t know won’t hurt him.

That reminds me.

I am someone who cheats.

No.

I am someone who cheats. I have cheated in past lives, but not in this one.

Much better.

Now on to the nitty gritty.

The thoughts come faster than I can write

and I forget a few.

I am a mother, but have no children.

I long for a father, but refuse to forgive the one I have.

I love alone time, but am terrified to be abandoned.
I work hard, but am irrevocably lazy.

I believe in God, but I think He can be an asshole sometimes.

I want to be a writer, but find every excuse not to write.

I am amazingly stubborn, yet I compromise more than anyone else I know.

I am the saddest girl there ever was,

yet everyone that knows me say,

“How happy she is!”

That’s the one that always gets me.

Unforgettable, cunt, beautiful, odd-looking, sexy, dorky, talented, loser, amazing,

These are all words others have used to describe me;

I cannot help but wonder who it is they are talking about.

When I look in the mirror,

I am just me.

I read everything I’ve just written.

Contradictions, every single one.

I toss Mcleod’s Getting To Know Yourself on the floor, irritated.

How are you supposed to know who you are when

everything about you is a paradox?

I look back up at my imitation stars.

I think a moment,

about all that I have done,

the people I have known,

the lives I have lived;

then resolutely, I pick up Mcleod’s self help book.

I scribble a little on the corner of a page

to make sure my fuschia pen still works

before I write one more thing.

I am Love.