Consider This

There is an idea that is me.

A concept, a notion – a mirage, if you will.

I am colours, yes. I am sounds.

I am oxygen going in and carbon dioxide coming out.

I am six feet of snowy pastel skin and lush red muscle.

Dyed hair, and ears that stick out like satellite dishes.

I am the embodiment of self-consciousness:

Living and breathing reticence.

I am sarcasm and quick quips,

And concrete opinions, like a paving slab of ideals.

I am a vintage t-shirt, a gilt frame mirror,

A salmon coloured lunchbox shaped like a house.

I am collar bones, hip bones, ankle bones, wrist bones,

Sexual innuendos and laugh-coated groans.

I am tea and biscuits, God Save the Queen, three lions on a shirt.

I am things I will never tell anyone,

Like blow-fuelled fights and that night in the park.

I am melodies that crescendo under the surface.

I am a headache; a fake laugh; a temper to rival Bruce Banner’s.

I am 1.96 million people in the country. Nothing new to report.

I am typical; I am reliable. I am expected.

I am a mask of sanity that is about to slip.

I am behind me,

Beneath me,

Through me.

I am not entirely what you see.

There is only an idea of me.