midlife reflections

there are many mes.

there is the beautiful me

whom everyone admires, and

the selfless me

who suffers in silence.

there is the me who can

do it all

and do it well.

there is the loving me, who never

says a hard word.

there is the smiling happy me,

hiding.

there is the spiritual me, sitting lofty

on her throne, accepting praise.

the bitter me, the greedy me, the angry me, the sad me.

the not-enough me.

the failure.

 

these selves i know

well. both the factual

and the imagined, i

admire and despise

by turns. but all

the preening, pruning, parading

and practicing to be

someone, something else

are just the forms of self-love

by which i know my emptiness.

 

i want a different me,

the Real One.

 

the One that made You smile in the darkness

of nothingness,

the One You spoke into shape,

breathed into being,

formed into fullness in the secret

place of eternity.

 

i want the Me that You know,

the One for whom You

shaped mountains, slung stars,

sang into life the light and life and brightness

of the very earth.

 

the Me You pursued reckless into

the heaving filthy hatred

of the wreck of my despair.

 

the Me that You know is the Me

that knows You.

 

the more i know You the more

i know

Myself.

 

i can only know You by losing

me

and finding my

Self at last

in You.