What I am Not.

I'm not this tune

I've been playing

for the ears of anyone looking,

but not for the ears

of anyone listening.

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I'm not the clothing I adorn

each morning when I wake,

a camouflaged attempt

at fitting in.

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I'm not the box I checked

on the screen you placed before me;

because one word in multiple choice 

is never enough to fully capture

the well inside.

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I'm not the same person I was

four months ago today;

even in so little time,

the slightest alteration can ripple into

a wide-reaching change.

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I'm not the person I'm going to become,

though the seeds of that being

are somewhere hidden inside me,

waiting to be nourished by whatever new ideas 

take root.

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I'm not the echo you thought you heard

when you mistook my breathing

for a familiar song.

I am the pause between notes,

the place where sound decides

whether to rise or fall.

◅▻

I'm not the silhouette

you traced around me

to keep me still.

Your outlines never learned

the way my edges shift

when I’m finally unobserved.

◅▻

I'm not the mask I practiced

in the mirror before dawn,

the one stitched together

from borrowed gestures and careful silence.

◅▻

That was only the shell

I wore until my own voice

grew brave enough

to speak.

◅▻

I'm not the story you drafted in your mind

with its tidy arcs

and predictable turns.

I am the unwritten chapter

that refuses to stay

where you place it.

◅▻

I'm not a list of nots and crosses

in the book you hold,

reading from pages of simplified messages 

pasted together

in another attempt at connecting.

◅▻

I'm not anything you've read,

because I'm so much more 

than what has been written between 

the words and sentences 

streaming through your mind.