What You Tell Yourself Is You

Everything you sense and think,
All of it, generates you.
It switches you off and on

Like a light, a logic gate.
Here you are again, awake.
There you’re gone again, deep sleep.

Experiencing makes you,
And so do the additions
And subtractions of recall.

Language makes you. Other minds,
Other lives have made you, too,
Molded you. However, those

Don’t switch you off, unmake you.
They just go on without you.
So here you are. Sometimes more,

Sometimes less as you forget,
Sometimes not. Eventually
You’re gone, either dwindling or

All at once, and don’t come back.
Now, what do you make of that?
What do you make of being

Something made by everything,
Something coming and going
Awhile and then just going?

What you think you are is part
Of you, too. Doesn’t have to
Be true to truly be you.