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.