Nobody

who am I?

no

what am i?

when I imagine seeing myself from beyond myself i am blurred and shapeless and I have no recollection of ever receiving a label

a receipt of any sort

no tags or emblems

that can tell me what i am and what i’m supposed to do

what am I supposed to do?

they tell me to fix things, to fix myself

but am i broken?

I must be because i keep breaking things around me and that’s something only broken things do but I don’t know what rubric to use or where my manual is

I don’t know what i am

they say i’m an incredible piece of art ~ something I can find reflected back at me in black and white movies and fragrant splashes of color on canvas

but i lose touch with the edges of reality when I think too long about what my face looks like

i hate when they tell me i'm an empty page waiting to be written on because i'm NOT ~ just look at me i'm all scribbles already

they say i’m here for a reason

but could that be when I don’t know what the reason is?

in fact, nobody does because nobody can tell me

so we’re all just guessing

i wish someone had told me that

they say i should be myself

but that falls short when I'm at war with my instincts, my morals, my personality, my laugh that's too loud, my hands that shake when I have to say my name at a desk, my nose that's not quite right

would a nose piercing do the trick?

perhaps i am just a wisp, a breathing of air, a caster of shadows

nothing but a brain inside a body

a heart inside a chest

a thought inside a mind

but this body is too real and too connected ~ even as i disassociate

maybe i'm an alien

too real, too grounded... I'm hungry

whatever

I'll never know what i am

and nobody can tell me otherwise