The Pretender - Part 2 Poem by Siobhan Niven

I want to know who I am, I always wonder.
But who do I ask, who even knows me?
When to myself, a mystery I am.

A shadow, a noise from inside;
Willing me to be, to do, to create.
The creation of every step I take;
Each choice I make confounds me,
preventing me from knowing;
Who I really am.

The Pretender!
Or is it really me?

My thoughts like to puzzle me,
masking my eyes to blind me,
making it hard to see.
Impossible to know which is true.
The person that I am, Am I to you?

No silence, no rest;
A buzz swarming in my brain, an anchor sinks my chest.
So strange; cold and numb.
But pain it often comes;
To break me; wear me down and strangle;
All of the life of the person I try to be,
to force out the real me, making it hard to breathe.

The one I hide from, I escape from;
I fear and run from.
Which pretender reigns true?
Is it who I am to me? Or who I am to you?