The Many Faces of Me

I have walked through evenings bent with silence,

where the hush of the streetlamp hums my name,

a hero, perhaps, in the whisper of one,

a villain in the frown of another.

 

I have been carved in shadows by the wary,

painted golden by the kind.

To some, I am a tempest in an unmade room,

to others, the hush of rain against glass.

 

Was it not yesterday I was brave,

standing tall in borrowed boots,

tilting at windmills with a fool's delight?

And yet, in another's eye, I trembled,

a thing too soft for the weight of days.

 

Oh, but how I have been too much!

A song sung sharp at the wrong table,

a fire burning too close to brittle walls.

And yet, to some, I have been warmth,

the quiet pulse of a lighthouse on tired waters.

 

I have been named.

Carved into stories I did not write.

Draped in colours I never chose.

Told where to stand, when to bow,

but the stage shifts beneath my feet.

 

The world is a house of mirrors,

each face a different truth,

each window another version of me.

 

So let me laugh at the fickle tide,

let me dance in the winds of contradiction,

let me live - oh, let me live!

not as the world sculpts me to be,

but as the wild, wandering shape of my own heart.

Author's Notes/Comments: 

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