Listen, but do not look, for I can’t be seen

Forget the appearances for they aren’t what they seem.

I am Death, Life, Love, Hope, Sorrow, Grief and Despair,

I am all that is fair, all for which you care, and all that you dare.

 

You shake your head and say that cannot be, I’m simply a man!

Ah-but it can. No one will ever know the true me, buried inside;

Deep within the blood, muscle, sinew, and bone in which I hide.

My heart-or is it my brain? - allows me to be infinite.

 

This poem is only a small window to a world within,

A world in which all rules of reality and gravity bend.

And the reality is you can’t even trust this poem,

It might be a blacked-out window, painted with lies.

 

Since you can’t know and don’t know, I’ll tell you the truth,

I’m just simply a man buried beneath truth and lies.

I’ve gone on many treasure hunts looking for such a prize,

Oh! To find out who I really was, that’d be something.

 

I think perhaps once I knew, back when I was a child, innocent.

But as I said, now the soul is buried deep beneath rubble,

Rubble of sin, mistakes, regrets, and accidents.

None of which I regret, poetry can build such beauty from that rubble!

 

Occasionally the soul will peep out from behind this ruin,

When a lover holds my hand, or when I gaze up upon something sublime.

I wish I could take a photo of it and give it to you,

I think you’d like that old soul of mine.

 

Confused? Well so am I, so many emotions inside.

I’m calm on the surface, yeah I’ll smile alright.

But I worry, because of the emotions swimming inside.

So many that-well you see- I just simply can't be simply a man.