I am standing on a blank white stage. The only voice that can be heard is mine. I am speaking to you, and I am speaking to no one in particular. I am getting nervous; I ­didn't properly prepare for this. I am getting to the point now.
Who am I? I am the lump sum of the adjectives assigned to me: lazy, forgetful, quiet, intelligent. Or am I only the adjectives I choose to be? I am a proper noun, a name I had no say in. I am also pronouns, mostly he, him, I, you, me, and sometimes a portion of us or we. I am the regretful owner of a loft bed. I am the thing that goes bump in the night, but that's only when I hit my head on the ceiling.
I am a burden to bear, and one bear of a burden. But I am not my failures or my shortcomings. I am “okay” and sometimes I'm not, but that is okay too. I am the fall, the onset of something to come. Some days I am warm and others I am cold. To some I am funny, and to others I am troubled. But mostly I am amorphous, a word assigned to something that cannot permanently retain any other words.
I am a collection of cells that has formed a consciousness that strives for individuality among other collections of cells that have formed their own consciousness. I am bigger on the inside; we all are – that's nothing new. I am striving, striving for more than just purposeless survival.
I am numbered: A first child, a first kiss, or perhaps a first love. A second choice that's second best, a second chance second guessing what he does with the seconds passing. I am an infinity expanding in whichever direction I choose. I am near, I am far, I am wherever you are. I am singing “My Heart Will Go On.”
I am an anatomy: a heart, a brain, some lungs and kidneys, and other organs. I am whatever I choose to be until I am told otherwise, or am I still what I choose to be even after?
I am making words and choices and sense and carbon dioxide and mistakes. I am not, however, perfect. Nor am I a character or an idea. I am a real person, unshaped by one singular mind, born of flesh and bone, striving to be more than flesh and bone. I am the platelets that rush to heal your wounds. I am the endorphins that accompany them to ease your pain.
I am contradicting myself. I am more than the name I have been given by myself or anyone else. I am letters and words and syllables and sentences and paragraphs and chapters and volumes and volumes and volumes of volumes.
A curtain is falling. The stage is going dark now; I am exiting. My voice cannot be heard anymore. The only sound is the light murmur of the audience. They are unknowingly assigning me more adjectives. I am absent yet I am lingering. They call me many things, but one thing I am not is forgotten.