The Real Me

I was put on the road of life without my consent. I was not conscious of who I was or of what I had to do, and What direction I should go. I was just asked to follow in the footsteps of my predecessors who: Dressed me the way they were dressed Baptized me into their religion, and taught me, Their language Their history Their tradition, and Their culture. On the way, they also indicated to me Whom to trust and whom not to trust Who my friends and my enemies were Whom I should love and whom to hate Thus Before I became an adult and form my own opinion about The nature of persons and things I already had become one of them. Growing older though, and being educated under different systems, I started questioning the correctness of the values and ideas with Which I was brought up Thus I asked myself: Was my religion really "my " religion? Were my enemies really "my" enemies? My friends really "my" friends? My values really " my" values? My ideas really " my " ideas? If they were, then there was no problem But If there were not, then who was I? Who was the real me? To give answers to these questions, I had to reinvent myself, I had to see me, not through the prism of their: Education, Religion, History, Tradition, and culture But Through my own prism The newly discovered prism of my "pure" self, The self that was liberated from all prejudices of the past. The self that saw the world I lived in under a new light of Understanding The light of my universal self, Te self that didn't belong to a race, a creed, or a nation But To humanity, to love, to the universal brotherhood, and God. To achieve this though I had to put myself into a parenthesis A parenthesis that helped me withhold, for some time, all my judgments Till I decided what ideas I will accept and what ideas I will refuse, Whom I will trust and whom I will mistrust Whom I will love and whom I will hate. When this introspection and reevaluation was completed Then and only then I was able to present myself to the world Then and only then I was able to shout on the top of my voice: "Here I am, my brothers, my sisters, this is the real me!" © Demetrios Trifiatis 19 May 2021 * I would like to share the honor of POTD with all my friends who are kind enough to visit and comment on my poetry. I also thank the officials of PoetrySoup who have the difficult task to choose among so many worthy poems the POTD. Blessings.