Who am I to you when you look,

Do I seem strange, am I unique,

Do you know how much it took

To become me.

I laughed and I cried in one,

I screamed for belonging with some,

With others I made do; I was not right

For them nor they for me.

I lived through wars, I heard the guns,

I saw the holes in roofs, I saw the earth

Scarred. I heard stories of babies

Slaughtered, impaled.

I heard stories about the enemy,

They were evil – we were evil to them,

I cried for my family, I cried for

My pets: my dog, cat, my bird:

I was eight.

I cried for my mother when she was ill,

And for my father, alone in a new land.

I cried for my mother on her birthdays,

I wept when she died and left me old.

Still I searched for belonging with some,

The others I despised, they were not

Right for me. I bore their scars and lived

On bruises. Rejection was my friend,

He taught me words and I dabbled

In sentences.

I let the music sustain me,

And it gave me strength to love:

I loved alone and more than most.

It was a one-way mirror.

I now search for belonging from those

Who see me, but most I thank

For creating the me I am now.

I am my past, and I love the new me.

I accept the cruelty and embrace Rejection,

I respect the deaths and wars, yet I’m bitter,

And I’m cynical you say now,

But I appreciate the irony,

And your efforts in making me such.