Self Potrait

What have I become?
All those things I've said I am
All those things I said I was
No longer a presence
Just a child's manifestation.

Where was the commitment I yearned forfor myself?
The settled life I had so wanted?
My apartment on the 8th floor,
my lil garden on the balcony?
The bookworm that I once thought I was?
The man I'd love because he respected me?
The girl who was a girl's girl
shy as hell
timid and soft.


Flings that come and go now
A 15 min cigarette break on the job
Drugs on the constant roll
An expresso martini in the fuckin' morning
When did I become you?


Taichi on a scared mountain
My fortunes told in Wudang
Harrassed below the Eiffel in Paris
Robbed by a gypsy in Rome


Wild nights in Barcelona
Getting horribly lost in Venice
Romanced in East London
Regretting not seeing that Brazilian


Stumbling with waffles and vintage finds in Brussels
while gorging on free belgium chocolates
My love affair with the city called Prague
had me running to a boy name Michel


My very first heart break- a French/Carribbean
that led to my soft spot for the Carribbeans
Smacked in the head by a turtle in Sipadan
Left my bloody wetsuit back in Mabul.


Shared my life with a lover for over a year
in the shadows of Big Ben
only to have my heart smashed to smitherins
yet again


My best mate's optimism
now clouds over my pathetic excuse to be a pessimist.
The dramas that unfolds now
no longer confronted by me alone
a pattern emerges somehow
from all these years of moving
a chain that holds and links
all the loves I've found


When did I become her?


Fuller now and content
Relaxed and chilled up
The hustles and bustles
continues its flow
but for nowI'm holding my own on solid ground
I like you now. I like me.
It took a while,
but I'm getting there

I'm loving me.