Identity

Some days, it feels as though I have an identity

And others, it feels like I’m faking.

I am not a fake or a liar

Am I? What does it mean, the word identity?

I have always struggled to find the meaning

Preferring to repress my personality,

Rather than to be who I truly am called to be

But “who am I called to be?” I often question

I have tasted life, grasped every ounce of the sweetness of happiness

And have been beaten into the ground with trial and struggle,

More often than I would’ve wanted to.

Now here I am, becoming? The person I ought to be?

Who am I called to be, oh Lord suppress the flame of my confusion

that burns so evidently within me.

It’s like I don’t know where to turn

What is my path?

Standing in a clearing, between two narrow roads,

I am conflicted. To go down the left path of self-destiny, carelessness and foolishness

Or to travel the way You need me to go, the right way. 

Although the left is more pleasing to the eyes than the right.

The right way tells me that I will face pain, a long hard road but with more, however, real joy and reward at the very end; more joy than I can ever imagine, even though I will need to hurt to receive it.

And the left says “Come, come and drink the sweet honey of lifelessness, and dance and have a good time”

But little does one know that one will be drinking, and dancing and experiencing ‘life’

Within the flames.

I think to myself, to go right, will be the best decision

After all, Lord, you said you’d never leave me.

Even when I’d be facing trial, I could run to you,

Hold your hand, to find my refuge in your light,

O lover of me. You know my identity. You’re holding on

To me.

And yet, people who claim to be ‘helping me’,

Are feeding me lies about the left path.

In all honesty, they think that by

Pushing me toward the fire, that they burn in,

Is giving me ‘good’ advice

I see people I used to be close to

With melted faces and disfigured forms

Calling to me, telling me that to burn is to live

That to never have enough money to survive is to live

To blow all of your money on ‘happy’ is to live

To trade your entire being for ‘love’ is to live

That to fall in line and enter the flame one by one

Is to live.

And every day they look into the mirror, and can’t see

Their burn marks.

Though they look at me, as if I’m scarred. 

This poem is about: 
Me
My community
Poetry Terms Demonstrated: 

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