pretending

I think I’m always pretending

Putting on a show for everyone around me

“Welcome, welcome, please take your seats, the Matilda show is about to begin”

Slipping into different characters

Because I don’t really know myself

And that’s a scary thing for me to admit

I think I’ve painted this picture of myself as a person who’s confident and sure of themselves

And I’m so desperate to find this person

But she’s a stranger

I don’t know her

I don’t know if I ever did

Did she ever exist?

Was I ever this version of myself

Or was it all just pretending

I think a lot about Sylvia Plath

And the fig tree

How will I know which path is the right one?

I’m so desperate to find my purpose

And feeling like I do right now

Completely purposeless, lost without a direction

It almost paralyses me

But there’s too many roads to take

Too many lives I want to live

And I don’t know myself well enough to know which one is the right one for me

And I keep dipping my toe in, trying on a different version of myself

Never quite finding the right fit

It just scares me

That I’ll never be able to live all the lives I want to

Or that I’ll never find the real me