Crisis on Identity Lane▪︎
POETRY
Do we even know the layers of us
tucked beneath underbrush?
Upon thrilling lives
Shadows disperse —
Blinded, burned, bruised
And filtered from heaving space
By a brilliance,
Radiated and crafted by me
For I am a presence
Present and brimming
With binding vibes
On daring encounters
But when I grip a pen
And let dark ink flow
It sprints upward
To my soul
And I am a drug
Bitter and vile
As sadness churns
Without and within me
Pooling in depths I wade in
With the darkness of it
Sluicing unto rusty script in cursive
What am I?
Am I neither
Or both combined?
Do I lean on joyful walls
Or sink in joyless seas
Do I find the middle ground
Where balance prowls
Or dwell in the façade of me
Whom I have yet to befriend?
I do not know yet
What beats upon my dreary morrows
Who tramples upon my
Sheltered thoughts
And carves a path
Through words of thickened grove?
For the clause of cause
Is what I seek from you
You are charged with a duty
You are bound to this edict
You whose eyes trace these words
Line after immortal line
You should tell me
What I am
Thanks for reading!
©thatshadowriter
