I'm Not Me
I'm Not Me
I don't know if today I am the self I once searched for,
sometimes I feel I only found a version waiting to be chosen,
I believe none of us are ever completely whole within,
we're born as drafts edited by a heavy family name.
We are corrected by society and published by expectations,
before we learn to walk we learn how to behave ourselves,
before we speak the truth we learn what's acceptable to say,
our thoughts, our fears, even our rebellion is installed not discovered.
We call it personality but I believe it's pure programming,
so when someone says you're good or bad or broken down,
don't rush to blame yourself or praise yourself too quickly,
it was never fully your idea or your original plan.
You didn't choose the language that shaped your emotions like soft clay,
the culture that taught you shame or all the rules for love,
you arrived here with very limited options on fate's table,
and the first thing placed upon your shoulders was a name heavy as stone.
A family name heavier than we ever admit out loud,
carrying history, mistakes, pride and pressure like a chain,
it becomes your identity before you even understand existence,
I wonder what is truly mine in this borrowed life.
If even my life feels borrowed from others all around,
what if I was sent to another planet or a deserted island,
no people, no mirrors made from other people's opinions,
just me and silence and maybe some animals without judgment.
How would I have lived there, what language would I invent alone,
how would I speak to myself without words already wounded by meanings,
would I even know what pain is or happiness or heartbreak,
would my chest ever feel heavy for something called love?
Would love exist without being named and labeled cruelly,
would I be kinder without rules or crueler without consequences,
would I ever cry if tears didn't mean weakness to the world,
would I fall for someone or something or even for myself?
Would life have meaning without an audience, without validation, without comparison,
and then I ask myself what does it take to be just ourselves,
not a role, not a continuation, not a corrected version of someone else,
do we truly need a name to exist in this world at all?
Or is the name the first cage we learn to decorate beautifully,
because if we're honest in this world on this surface,
we're not truly searching for ourselves through any labyrinth,
we scroll through identities, we're confused shoppers choosing who to be.
Choosing from an already written list of old and new characters,
we don't create ourselves, we're just late to make a choice,
choosing a life someone else is already living better or worse,
calling it destiny, calling it self-discovery in the wilderness.
When in reality it's just adaptation disguised as empty freedom,
and maybe the real tragedy isn't that we don't know who we are,
maybe it's that we never had the chance to truly discover,
who we were before being named, corrected, published and lost.
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