I Don’t Know Who I Could Be

by Jane Tawel

I Don’t Know Who I Could Be

A Poem

By Jane Tawel

April 19, 2021

I don’t know who I’d be, if I stopped unforgiving.

I don’t know who I’d be, if I spent less time worrying.

And who would I be if I didn’t care to keep up my grades,

but instead, judged not, either self or you?

If winning was an illusion I left behind like a broken toy,

might I know the terrible, fearsome freedom of joy?

*

I rarely know who I am, except as a passing glance,

a whirl of motion, unsteadied by a center aflame.

And I have always hated my name.

Longing for meaning in the temporal labeling

of a self-made shelter from identity thieves

I become “that person”, not myself.

My pronouns are “it” and “that”.

*

I hold myself at arm’s length,

and keep my arms too full;

so, by thinking I carry the weight of the world,

I carry a chimera, not a Hope.

Too afraid to empty my hands of grasping-ness,

too impatient or easily irritated to extend out,

either to help or hug.

I corner my soul like a trapped animal.

*

I don’t know who I could be,

so rather than running towards,

I take a step backwards.

Never throwing caution to the wind,

I am winded by a stagnancy of fearful insecurities,

an anger of ant-sized proportions.

My senseless, defenseless fists,

of my deformed ego, beat against

the beating of my expensive, essence-ed heart.

I sell my soul for the fast-food of believing that I was right.

I hide true treasure where I won’t find it.

*

Not knowing who I was once,

I still sense who I could become.

There is a self a-waiting just ahead,

No not a head, — a heart and will and

sensuality of Spirit-world.

The senses know

what the soul can only dream of.

*

My soul whispers,

soft as an Infant’s caressing forefinger,

strong as a memory of another World:

“You can become. You are becoming.

Let yourself meet yourself,

and be Created.

Come.”