Phantom Self (DARQ coming 08/10/24)

 
Did it take place all at once?
Or gradually did I digress to such an existence
Who is the “I” that I refer to as myself
When I’m lost for knowing who I am

Waking up resigned to a life of involuntary becoming
Or so it would seem
Desires creep in like snakes through whispers

I feel imposter to myself and yet self feels just as fraudulent
When the concept of how I define self is an anchor to ideal

Yet what is ideal but illusion apart from something concrete
Is it safe to talk to myself when I’m told not to talk to strangers?

I am a stranger I cannot escape the company of
And there is a fine line it seems between recognition and what is but familiar

Identity obscured like amnesia to reflection
Like I’m aged out of a sense of self perception

What do I call home but this place that I reside
Yet everyday is simply passing through
Yet it seems the more that I live here the less that I belong

Caught in cycles of routine I fall asleep and wake up to the same dysfunction
Home digresses to just a house that is not mine
Lost for knowing my place
I cannot escape this sense of feeling lost

I pulse between two versions of myself and even then they are not me
But I feel that I have never truly met the man that I’m supposed to be

On one hand an addict with nightmares undisclosed
Just a haunted mind
Like cave diving to catch a glimpse in the dark
Only to open my eyes to see that I am blind

Repressed within, a memory of invention
It’d be easier to make sense of this sickness that fractures my intention
To think there is a part of me that is not me
When I am the expressed symptom of a scar too deep to bleed
And even then what am I the offspring of, this world or a divine seed?

I’m a child called reborn and even then I do not know if it is true
The better part I imagine of myself is just as much a phantom to the monster locked inside
What part of me is alive and what part is but the ghost of what has died?

Even then does who I am reside within the mystery of all I was
As every photograph becomes clues to piece it all together
When smiles lie to lenses and frames surround the pretense
All I know myself for is but the role I play…