Lost My I

– by Ntya Satyan

I lost my I…
The one in my name,
The one in my brain,
The one I took this long to train
The one I wish to never find again!

Who really am I anyway?
What completes my sentence?
This ‘I’ that dictates my identity.
You know the one, that gets whispered behind me
in the words they use to define me.
So many labels!
Only part story…part reality…

How can I be contained, within a letter so small?
When I’m a different person,
with so many different people?
Sugar with some, spice with the others
A mirror, a sponge, an actor.
Always changing, always growing,
I rise and I falter.

Who would I even be…
If it weren’t for the (outsourced)
noise in my head?
Whose voice do I hear,
when I act or decide?
This voice that I trust,
which instructs me through everyday life, isn’t even mine.
Have I employed someone else as guide?
A taskmaster perhaps, with a benchmark too high?
Or the chip on my shoulder? The devil in my design?
Is this someone I’ve created, best suited to survive?

My own voice is in there somewhere,
awfully quiet, painfully shy.
Making a hesitant appearance when it’s silent
Growing bolder and more assertive, as the years go by
Showing up suddenly, when I read or write…
when I close my eyes.

I found her accidentally one day,
while wiping a lifetime of dust away,
It felt like reaching buried treasure!
And now that I know where she stays,
(deep below, in the core of my being,
under all my packaging, enclosed within my machine),
meeting myself has become an addiction,
Like visiting an old friend,
long forgotten…much delayed.

It’s time to put her in the spotlight though,
to strengthen her spine.
This wise one who’s seen it all,
who remembers the many ‘once upon a times’
If I simply reinstated her, as the voice of my mind.
And evicted all the other ‘I’s’,
the ones I no longer am…

Then I’d have front row seats to witness,
The story of my own life, from a distance,
Like a movie-going audience with popcorn in a bucket,
From set to set, script to script, I’d go…
Approving or disapproving of my character’s actions,
Living euphorically, in the ultimate out-of-body experience!

I lost my I! And I’m glad I did, I truly am.

Because now…I truly AM!

#NityaAlwaniSatyani #NityaSatyani

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