They ask me

“Who has had the greatest impact on your life?”

But what they really mean is “Who defines who you are?”

It's just a question.

But it's a question that restricts me of my agency

Because who has the time to sum up one's character in thirty minutes Who has the vocabulary to simplify the entire human experience

But they don't care, so tell us “Who defines who you are?”

Yet, who claims the power to confine my symphony?

Not the personal statement for that one internship Not the doubtful tennis coach

Not the boy from camp who wouldn't let me on his team Not the girl who called me ‘stupid.'

Not the man from the subway

Because their blind eyes guide them to see shadows on the wall

And their empty hands try to thrust and suffocate me into Plato's cave Now the real question is

Am I the prisoner, and is the cave my parole

Am I just a girl

A characteristic they tried to extract

Is that my prison uniform

Tightening its grip Constricting my character

As it enwraps me in fabrics of false truths

They are the craftsman, so does that make me their craft Sculpted to perfection

A myopic phantasm

Served in service of their self-esteem

Why is it that what they view 

Could never be translated into my eyes 

What gives them the license to write the libretto of my life based on shadows cast on the wall? Why are they named composer and I the instrument they pluck their stingy melody along to? Their eyes, bathing in obscurity, could never see the gleaming light that waits beyond the cave. 

And that gleaming light, radiating off the walls, it taunts me 

A fair whisper among these shadows It spills in and frays the stitched seams of my uniform 

Until unraveled threads pull at bare skin 

Spilling lost identities that were  shattered to fragments 

So girl, is just the snapshot he tried to capture 

Stupid is what she liked to call me 

But it cannot show you my substance 

My shadow is not a reflection, it is a distortion 

And I don't see what they imagine me to be

I see the writer 

The biologist 

The philosopher 

The friend 

The patient sister 

The outspoken student 

The nervous one standing before you 

I see beyond shadows. 

The textured language of emotion that poetry lends a linguistic

Rendering that power to unmolded young minds 

Biological processes, broken open 

Waiting for the engineer to tinker 

That gleaming light becomes more apparent. 

With every reach for a rock 

With every piece of cloth that tears off 

My opera, it plays right before me 

So I will sprawl and I will reach for the conductor's baton 

So, tell us 

“Who defines who you are?” 

It's really just a question. 

A philosopher aims to understand and reach higher levels of reality 

And escapes the cave.