It's Who I Am

 
Pieces of my reality, I keep hidden in the dark
afraid to let the people in who would see it as a lark
to look and gawk and then engage in disparaging chatter
as though who I really am at heart was a laughing matter.

Looking on the surface, you will see a life that's dull and tame
Month after month and year after year - every day the same.
The shining dreams that may have been have long ago ceased to glow.
And what would seem to pass for life is little more than a show.

Open up the door a bit and let the light shine in my soul,
You'll see the tears that I have cried and the pain that's taken hold.
A witness you may be to the phantom of past that haunts my day
and the nightly "what if" apparition that just won't go away.

I sit and pen these words, a small loving dog lies on my lap
and I thank the Lord that this little one helps fill up the gap.
The cut, the wound – the part of me that has been mutilated
makes the person that I once was distant and unrelated.

Modulated and moderated, boiled down to basic stock.
Rocking boats and sailing ships have long been in dry dock.
What's left is just the residue, the boring, if you please:
It was all summed up when a doctor said that I had old knees.

Old parts that no longer bend or flex like in my long lost youth.
Sayings that my mother said now seem to hold less joke than truth.
A faint smile forms on my lips as I wonder where I'd have been
if I could go back to my mother's womb and start life again.

All is not lost – looking through the tears and the hardened pain;
there is much I would lose if I had to do it all again.
After all the years of thinking that I was outside looking in,
perhaps I am the closest to being me than I've ever been.

Sophistication and haughty style, I can't seem to acquire.
What fancies others covet are to me just muck and mire.
Memories of hard fought wars are in my treasure chest.
I'll forsake the role of aristocrat to keep what suits me best.