when you've lived as long as
i have,
"identity" sort of goes like this, okay?
you sacrifice a
little bit of "you" in every new vessel,
and you start stopping looking
into mirrors because whenever you do
you want to smash every one
you walk past,
need to slam something
heavy into it
until it breaks into a thousand shards of glass
scattered all over the floor,
and nothing recognizable is in it
so you don't have to
see what's passing as "yourself" this time.

eventually,
you start to play the
actor, playing roles in a predetermined
script to follow, viewing each
vessel as a performance
because it's the only way to save your sanity
it's easier to play along
with the script that's been
written for you, and
answer to the names of marionettes
than keep smashing glass
with your bare hand and having
shards embedded in your palm, and
blood streaking down your fingertips and coat

so please refrain from 
trying to extend me the pitiful courtesy of
addressing me by name,
as if there is anything of me left inside;
because if i hear my name
at this point in time, i'll just honestly
shatter into a thousand fragments
that nobody can put back together
and lose the last grip i had on staying sane
between my fingertips.



now,
please don't pretend to mourn me,
because none of you knew a thing
about me to begin with
not one of you
went looking, when i didn't show
though yes, i knew you:
i knew you all like i knew them,
how desperately i
wanted to know you and know them and
care so fondly for you all, yet
i know you like i know them, like
a person knows the stars
watching and seeing and observing
impersonal and full of details
that others who also scrutinize the
sky write down and accept as "truth"

i've known you like the angels
know their sheep, 
impersonal and too full of truths 
yet i have never spoken to you
long enough to know
anything about me.
i knew you like the conductor knows
the characters of the play that he is writing the score for,
intimately in detail to accurately
capture the emotion
and longing that he sought to portray,
but the characters onstage
can never know him.
(he is no more real to them than they are to us,
but they are real to him, is that not
a lonely cessation of being?)



at any rate,
this has been a lovely catch-up of
old times!
the next time we see
each other, i'm sure that
i'll be breaking a different vessel
and ripping the skin off
of my face with my nails, pulling
each strand of hair out
piece by piece.

goodbye.