La Moza

If you have to tell me what type of person you are
and I need to respond with “that’s interesting”
And I don’t get a chance to meet you,
and greet you,
and get to know at least the first bits about you
If you have to tell me what type of person you are,
I don’t have the chance to decide for myself.

Who is it that gets to decide what type of people we are?
It’s my brain, and my soul, and my thoughts inside.
It’s my metal voice telling me what to do.
It’s my own sense of being who I believe that I am
That makes me me to me.
But what makes me me to you?
It certainly can’t be the thoughts I keep hidden-
the ones that I’ve never shared.
It can’t be the time I poked at the robin’s nest
and two eggs fell to the ground, shattered like sweet hard candy
the embryos still intact, limp beaks.
And I looked into their eyes
though it has been years since past.
Her name was Margaret and she had a chair with wheels, polio.
They told her she was stupid and silly, we did.
They were reprimanded and sent home, I wasn’t.
I shared these things with the walls of my room, my stuffed bear in bed.
They kept my confessions to themselves.
There are things inside me that make me me to me.
These things you don’t know and never will you.
Yet we must continue in this cycle, this swirling, this life.
My question is now, What makes me me to you?
In this I must remain silent, for now we speak of your emotions.
What happened to you that made you you to you?
What makes you you to you is the first question
needing to be answered if we are to find our way through to
‘What makes me me to you?’
What have I done in your life that has connected to another past memory?
What significance have I had that makes you think of other things,
be they good or poor smelling?
I can tell you all I want till the day begins again
what makes me me to me,
but we are operating in a system which you do not understand and I cannot explain.
We are so distant, you and me.
We look very much alike, yet at the very core,
there is only the one, the person residing inside,
this is the only one with whom you may relate.
It is the only person with whom you may compare.
All others are simply speculations based on what you and only you have experienced.
I can never go through what you have gone through and get the same results.
I can only image what you have gone through and compare it to my set of data entries.
This is hardly scientific.
I wonder why we have such a hard time getting along.

winkash

Sometimes Internet connections cause this kind of situations. Maybe you're referring to a different issue, but this poem serves the purpose, anyway. In all the time I've been wandering like an almost invisible tramp, I've seen many things, many tortured souls, many lonely and abused ones. They happen to meet in these interesting places, like you and me and, using anonymity as their shields, they pour their emotions - I myself pour my emotions- and many of them, once they are done with the catharsis, don't even remember why they were here in the first place and grow very shy when they realize that they are here because they don't have anyone to honestly talk to.
Some of them even write or try to and are so breakable that it hurts.
It is quite interesting how in some cases business are suddenly mixed up with emotions. This is what happens in sites like this one, where our imagination is set free. WE are set free.
Some people crave empathy and mutual understanding, but there are times when interference is just too much and communication ends up following a wrong path. This is when questions like come up.
I have my view: it everything seems very personal, yet it is not personal at all, given that so many of us have so many things in common and we perfectly could feel we are as one, which is almost like being alone. But this is MY view.
This is what I see in your poem. Sorry this is long; you got me inspired.

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"All, all is theft, all is unceasing and rigorous competition in nature; the desire to make off with the substance of others is the foremost - the most legitimate - passion nature has bred into us and, without doubt, the most agreeable one."
Marquis de Sade