I Am Who I Am

 

I am

Who I am,

and who I am

is reflected

in how I am.

 

Even though

who I am

is not

pleasing to some

still

I am who I am.

 

I have

not always known

who I am

and

that discovery

has not

been easy

simply because of

how I am.

 

I ask not

for forgiveness

for how I am

just for

freedom to become

who I really am.

 

For until

I become who I really am

I must remain

someone

I am not.

 

Copyright 1980 by Layne S Porter

 

 

Side notes by Layne:  I have always had an insatiable desire to understand the underlying reasons behind the way people interact and relate to each other.  It is this propensity to seek even a rudimentary understanding of human nature that appears in much of what I write.  It was in one of these moments of reflection concerning my relationship with my father that generated this poem.  Reading it after all these years still takes me back to that day when I was tending the cash register in Hastings Hardware Store in Afton, Wyoming .  That was the moment when I penned this poem during a lull in the afternoon.