Creative Voices

By Vishwa Parmar / Matthew staff

Is it just a phase? 

Am I ever to find that one true self? 

If I even have one— 

if there is a single self, whole and complete, 

how do I become it? 

I tire of the versions I wear, 

layers upon layers of lives I’ve borrowed, 

parts collected, and voices 

echoing from every person I have ever met. 

Am I a traitor to myself, 

unable to be true in my own diaries? 

Even in solitude, I smooth over the bad parts 

as though hiding them from my own eyes. 

What I bury runs deep— 

I cannot bear the thought of it read, 

bared in the open air, breathing, 

this darkest, rawest pulse of me. 

Yet here I am, worn down by my disguises. 

All the selves I’ve spun into masks, 

morning after morning. 

Somehow, I long for a truer face, 

some permanent state of selfhood, 

if such a thing exists. 

To live with myself would be easier 

if I knew I were solid, indivisible and whole. 

But I am change, 

and change is nature. 

A sparrow’s song, waves splashing on sand, 

the great wheel of the universe turns— 

I am spun with it, by it, through it— 

and impermanence is no hollow thing. 

I am part of that constant becoming, 

finding, and unmaking of selves, 

this kaleidoscope—true in its flux, 

and myriad in its meaning. 

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