I is Me

I have come to realize
old adages have truth,
theorize
old fears can die,
believe
that I
have no purpose on this earth
other than to disentangle the mystery of self
and how that includes losing
old ways of framing
and painting
scenes in my head
that reflect just one perspective,
because the borders I think I see
around me
are not fixed
nor part of a reality
distinct from my own experience.

——

Making love is real,
and it involves the soul, body, heart, and mind,
and the kinds of things that exist outside
of space and time.
Heroes seem lonely
to me now.
I used to imagine myself in a cabin
in a forest,
chopping wood,
fighting demons in my head.
Such dreams perpetuate the myth
that man is burdened with something unique,
oblique,
and that to face our fears collectively is somehow weak,
and yet experience teaches me
a different kind of truth.

——

As I look out at the landscape of my heart,
I see people, animals, trees, rivers, and stones,
and the bones
of the man I used to be,
a man full of fear
who chased me
into dark corners of my mind,
and so there I hid,
slid
into a quiet madness
championed by society.
I had answers,
hard edges around my heart,
and I planned how each day would end,
not how it would start,
because I was a man whose eyes
were fixed on the horizon.

——

When my heart broke,
I awoke
from a deep slumber
to discover the man inside my head
was in fact me,
and that the chase
was not a metaphor
for what it means to be
or not to be,
but rather a manifestation
of the loneliness I felt
inside me.
I see now I created the man
and he me,
and so we
must part ways
one of these days,
and this is one of those days.

——

As I watch this man run away from me
over a bridge and into the black folds of outer space,
I hear a sound in my heart
and turn to see this man
with outstretched arms
and we embrace,
melting into the other,
as we both realize
without the need to theorize
that I is me…