Who Am I?

[CoffeeSpoons]

This wasn't originally written as a poem, and still kind of isn't, but I was asked a few months ago if I could write something explaining who I was as a person. While listening to Maxence Cyrin - Where Is My Mind (The Pixies Piano Cover) I wrote this.

Thought I would share this. Let me know what you think.

Spoons.

Who am I?

I am lost while settled, alert when listening, inspired when I roam and alive when I write.

I am an idealist four days of the week and a realist the other three.

I am the mistakes I make today, the problems I solve tomorrow, the ever changing result of countless ideas.

I am a constant questioner, a perpetual dreamer and the pilot of my imagination.

Who I am differs from day to day, week to month, even year by year.

I am nothing more than a work in progress.

A raindrop amongst countless raindrops slowly meandering down a window, looking for a way to reach the ground.

I am the only person who can change my life for the better.

I am the only person who will ever know my true self.

But who I am the most is someone that knows they will one day no longer exist.

Perhaps it is the knowledge of my mortality that truly answers the question of who I am.

Which isn't someone who fears death or what, if anything, will be waiting.

It is not a fear of some imaginary deity that will condemn me to a place called hell.

It is a worry that one day all I will be is another one of those people who has become a squanderer of time.

Someone guilty of treason in the eyes of anyone who knows its true value,

Who is then judged by the people who achieved more than I did while having much less of it and more excuses not to have.

And in doing so, my punishment will be that having done nothing meaningful I am forgotten.

[addy]

The sentiments you presented here are inspiring and thought-provoking. Though you were speaking of yourself, I certainly could relate .

You mention that it wasn't originally written as a poem, and it shows. By the latter half of the piece you have resorted to "telling" rather than showing, reciting your musings at the reader rather than expressing the same ideas through imagery/ narrative. You got stuck on answering the question / constructing an argument, rather than presenting an organic scene. So I think in that respect the piece could be improved.

[billy]

it doesn't explain who you are, it's a universal poem that's been written many many times.
while it seems good and somewhat clever it leaves the reader no wiser as to who you really are.
well i suppose it might but only in the generality of it.

[just mercedes]

I'm a big fan of poems that show me, rather than instruct me. Your poem title suggests that I'll find out who 'you' are, but this doesn't happen - I have no better idea of who you are by the end of it. I like your idea about 'squandering' time' being treasonous, but you don't develop it - perhaps the most original image in the poem. I don't understand the punishment - from whom? the deity you've already dismissed as imaginary? I think you need to go a bit deeper into your subject, to answer the question posed by your title.

[TwistedAngel]

i really liked this an i also loved the title an that 'we' or even youself never found out who you are...does anyone know them true selfs ?

i never got the feeling you wos 'telling' me either TBH but more giving us your own thoughts about a finite life

i guess if you did happen to give us the answer to 'the meaning of life' we would be either worshipping you or nailing you to the nearest tree

[billy]

i would agree except for the intro to the poem.

but I was asked a few months ago if I could write something explaining who I was as a person.

my suggestion would be to remove the prologue, that way the poem would work better on a universal who am i theme