In the Shadows I Hide

Nobody really knows me. Heck, even I don't know who I really am. Am I legend? Am I scandal? Am I both? I'm like an amnesiac, images floating in my head, never knowing which are real and which are dreamt. When I have second thoughts on what my life could have been, I'm like a man facing a tragedy for the first time. If some of those images I see are real, I’m not sure I can ever come clean of the shame.

As I walk the dusky, dirty streets of a dying planet, I stare into the distant haze. A world gone mad. If a man has nothing to offer and does nothing, he has not sinned. Was not his place. But if a man has a gift and does not share it, he contributes to the demise. So I ask myself: was I gifted and did I destroy it?

In my senior English class the teacher went around the room throwing out these stock phrases we were supposed to give a one line response to. Stuff like “technology” and “world peace”. I know, I know - I thought it was lame then, too. So when I got picked for “world peace” my reply was: “World leaders should be made to lick each others feet.” It got a good laugh and it showed my feelings towards the exercise. We then had to write a five paragraph paper on our response and the teacher wrote on mine, ‘I predict one day you will be a great something, maybe even a writer.” I turned out to be a great something alright.

Now, I hide in the shadows, bleeding in my blog. I peer out from around corners, duck away at the sound of footsteps and breathe fearfully in the dark. If I’m on a job, it’s time spent in the bathroom I enjoy most, hidden among all the machinery, safe from prying eyes. There’s a question hounding me and the fleeing from it has sent me to the edges of the universe. I tremble in the shadows and pray, “Please, no one ask, ‘Who are you?’ ”