The Third Me

I feel like I’m trapped within myself �" that my body is a cage and am lucky enough to peek through the bars. I do not associate myself with myself. I am torn between two people that I think I would like to be, but this results in a burgeoning third, who I do not like and do not wish to be. This third man is a closed off creature �" a self-loathing, narcissistic, perpetually alone and lonely individual who cannot or does not extend himself to the things he desires, nor does he know what he desires. Upon the realization of a desire, he crushes it, reforms it, swallows and regurgitates it, and remorphs it into something that he is scared to touch.

He is afraid of who he is because he does not like what he could become. He watches people pass by and he hates them without knowing them. He does not identify with people because he is unaware of his own identity. He is tormented by any semblance of beauty, especially if that beauty be condensed and confined to an individual. He speaks to everyone but connects with none. He is outgoing until it means something, then he shatters and falls to the ground.

He tries to reconcile these differences within himself, but he is afraid the path is incorrect. He tries to love and be loved, but refuses these as ideals to be sought by the elite. He denies himself companionship with any person that dares smile because he would not like to take that smile away. He sits alone at night, lying awake in his bed, thinking and wondering, breathing and crying, hoping and praying that one day he might feel complete - as if a hand might come down and guide him to his destination.

He thinks there is a God somewhere, but that this God has forsaken him. He feels this world’s worship is hollow and scripted �" a play on the stage these same people created. He knows that he is alone in these curiosities, as no one dares question the performance. He knows there exists a hatred among those who worship, a hatred to those that dare defy the norm. He knows the God they worship does not exist, and that if it does, then it shouldn’t.

He dreams of the day he can stop writing and live �" for the moment the pen and keyboard are no longer needed to prop himself up into the next day. He longs for the time where he is complete and no longer has this divide within. He begs for the moment where he can sit back and look at the past and say it is in the past, without having to turn back around and notice the future’s peculiar similarity to what is behind. He, in short, wishes to be something else. He wishes he was not himself. He wishes he was uncreated and recreated, swallowed and regurgitated and remorphed into something he despises, because anything he despises seems joyous, and anything he hates seems at peace.

He wants to hate himself, as it might grant some direction. He wants to despise who he is because then he might change. He wants to loathe what he has become so that he can decry his hates and his passions as mere bystanders to a long ride. He abhors who he is, though is enraptured in his grandeur. He wishes he was more than a cage. That he could feel when he feels, and see when he sees, and breathe when he breathes, and hear when he hears, and smell when he smells, and cry when he cries, and die when he dies, and live when he lives. But such luxuries? I know are beyond my reach.