Mini-Me and I

 

Mini-Me and I

Every morning I wake up and greet my metaphor in the mirror. I trace its eyes in liner, rouge its cheeks, and fluff up its hair. Who am I being? What has become of my self? Which one of me will come into being (become) today? Each morning I prep some version of my self to present to the world. But, which me am I? Jorge Luis Borges’ Borges and I, personifies a dualism of self that creeps into our consciousness every time we take a walk down memory lane. As human beings, who are we? Are we the cause of, or the shadow of our self? Who needs whom for the other to exist?
In this short piece, Borges refers to his immortal self as “Borges”, and his current state of being as “I”. As human beings, our identity is in a constant state of flux. One minute we are and the next, we have been. So, which one is this? “I do not know which of us has written this page”, Borges states in the last line.
Haven’t I written this before? I can stick bits of me to this page as some sort of attempt to verify my existence, but once they’re on the page those bits of me are no longer mine, no matter how large I make my name. “…But those pages cannot save me…”, Borges says of his extraverted self. No matter how much I uncover about my self through my writing, it will never belong to me. My self discovery is a nano of a second that hums between having been and coming into being–the grey matter of an “ah ha” moment.
So, which “me” matters? Am I Alice, the mode of being that is, or alice, mode of being constantly coming into being? Who wears hair bows and is always dressed to the nines, who stars in all my memories and is blowing out all my candles, was that ever me? Is our true state of being a passive one? Are we observers in an illusive mode of existence, constantly in flux? “Borges” is his “tangible” identity, the one that looks nice on plaques. But,do we become lost to this “tangible” identity, the labeled identity that looks so nice on book covers and phone bills? What is in a name?
Have I already become a memoir? I am trying to justify myself through the action of putting my thoughts to the page, into some sort of tangible form, but as I finish this sentence, who really wrote it? Me, my self, or I?

Impromptu

My life is best when filed worth impromptu cosmos and existential convo with old neighbors.

I’ll miss this place. 

For My Mother

You know that instant when you finally let yourself think back on all you’ve been through?
When you ‘re sitting alone, cat in lap, waiting for something, anything to jump you to your feet and knock your ego back down a few pegs?
The moment when you realize, “holy shit, it’s almost over.”
In that moment, you look at your mother and think, “how in the hell did she keep us afloat?”
In that moment you wish you could have done more, did more, and promise you will do more to keep her as far away from suffering as possible.
In that moment, you fully appreciate, LOVE and admire this magnificent lone person for all the nagging, pushing, and harsh reality she dished out.
In that moment, you put aside your aspiring adulthood and allow yourself to be her hair-bowed little girl a little bit longer.
In that moment, you realize you had never lost your family, just misplaced them for a little while.

In that moment, I realized I was allowing myself to forgive him.

Starting now

I’m done making wishes and busy making things happen instead.

Dear writers…

Writers,
  I hope you realize we’re a very odd bunch. Highly defensive about our writing, bizarre, weird, constantly verging on madness…ah, it’s great to be write.