Ask me who I am, and I will not hear you,
for I am deep in a crowd calling out my own name.
I will not know the sound of my own voice
until it whispers back.
Until then I will spend my hours
wondering at fate’s reason for the rise and fall of my chest.
I will ask whys and hows,
and the priests and the atheists and the protestors in the streets
will profess their own truths,
but not mine.
Until I am found, I will choke on these memories
and count the scars on my limbs.
I will shout my given name through the dark alleys and the fields
and across the mountain peaks,
straining to hear a response;
or at least an echo.