"Be creative", " be original", " be you",

The phrases that haunt my existence out of my body,

The ones people wear proudly,

On their T-shirts,

And even more proudly on their foreheads.

Everybody says it like a mantra for life.

They say it to me,

Drive it through me,

That sharp-worded knife.

 

But it is hard,

To just 'be me',

And be forever free...

 

How can I be original,

When all my fears, anxieties, dreams, passions, emotions,

Every inch of my life and

Every breath of my waking hour

Is borrowed, stolen and begged for?

 

Where am l,

In the borrowed words,

I beg to use?

 

Where am I 

In the patterned experiences,

I try to make priceless?

 

Between the two eyelids that wipe away my day 

Where am I to stay?

 

Where am I,

Between the footprint pairs,

Climbing the heavenly stairs,

Or descending to hellish lairs?

 

I have so lost myself in restrictions,

To recover myself in mere motivations.

My morality borrowed fences,

Are too barbed to be even seen.

 

My deception-walled safety house,

Is too scared to let me out.

My waking hours of idleness,

My sleeping hours of restlessness,

All wake up to the nightmare,

Of a soul smothered to sleep.

 

My thoughts are too terrified,

To look at people's good books,

For fear that even looks

Could get them judged 

As good for nothing crooks.

 

How can I be intrepid

When l am shocked by my own tamed rebellions?

How do I let go,

Of everything I have been educated to know?

How could it be so easy to let go,

Of everything I have been told to be,

Everything I have strived to be?

How is such a reckless abandonment possible?

How can I be creative,

When all I have learnt so far is,

How to kill everything I create?

How can I create,

When I keep hearing echoes all around?

Echo caves are not passionate makers,

They are disinterested fakers,

And echoes are not creations,

But mere reflections.

Echo that I am,

How can I be any different?

Please,

please tell me how...