I am but an operator of a

puppet

It looks like me

It talks like me

And it walks like me

Yet the real me hides behind a curtain

Too afraid to reveal himself

 

The me on stage is not the

real me

Yet it dances anyways

And even I watch the performance

And pretend that is me

I fool myself

 

Neither of these is what I want

to be

In an eternal anguish

Because I do not remember a time

When I have been the true

Instead of the ideal

And yet even that is a failure

 

The puppet and puppeteer are only a

a constant

Neither important nor not

Something you expect to be there

But do not need

Perhaps this is the role I have

Doomed myself forever to

 

The man who hides behind

a curtain

Who conceals himself

From even himself

And knows not how to emerge

Will continue to act

Through the pull of a string