Imposter

To tell someone’s story your way, is to take away their liberty of the narrative. If there were real halflings living in forestscapes away from the regular bustle of the industry world, they’d hide even more after Tolkien’s telling. I know things sound ridiculous the way I narrate them, but that’s the kind of stupidity I am beginning to feel easier to experiment with rather than to adapt a template of telling. That’s how I want to cope from the nightmares of impostor-ism, or a language personality that though feels comfortable to adapt, feels so very alien. It’s not new, the race to be you. To be able to cry off your own story, so as to live through the avoidances and therapize through your retellings, over and over and over is to begin somewhere, not precisely home but at the outskirts of the native town. Knock knock. Who’s it? Poster. Poster who? The imposter. No thanks. You’re not welcome, sir. I’ll scribble through and over your monstrosity. I’ll keep a notebook close to my body and register everything that counts as an act of murdering you- an event that must and will originate from my own doing. I am a sinner, I am a sinner, I am a sinner. I must not tell lies. I must commit sins but not cover them with language that becomes their advocate. You’re not welcome in this house. I will build it over my bruises and call it a bandage. I’ll provide moisture to this desert with my own blood and the bones in your body will be weak at the sight of this moss that I’ll call MY GARDEN. One day, there’ll be roses and daisies and words in this garden and their scent with burn through your olfactory and reach your brain where you’ll register this as the scent of a man who defeated you and killed you when you were knocking, wide awake at the doorstep, waiting for someone to open the door so you could take their liberty of narrative and leave them in ruins of identity. That day, I’ll become the artist you’ll call an original.

In shadows, I’ll be an ally to myself.