The seems of my disguise burst at the seams

Of simmering restraint. For, sun-like, beams

The shadowed self through artificial means,

Resplendent force that must demand be seen.

To know myself by peering outside-in

Is parody of chicken-egg or jinn,

But, through act and habit, the I within 

Soon outward shows, by outward shows begins. 

The only remedy is wakefulness, 

As when I wake and seem myself in dress,

With half an eye towards sounds of mute distress

And other eye for surface interest. 

Thus truest self is known, though never bound

To share with artifice a common ground.