ABOUT THE POEM: This piece sits at the intersection of existential philosophy and lived psychological reckoning. It rejects external validation systems—religious, spiritual, social, or ideological—and replaces them with internal accountability. The speaker is not searching for meaning, salvation, or transcendence; the speaker is establishing jurisdiction over their own identity. The repeated negations are deliberate. They function as a stripping process, removing borrowed narratives until only agency remains. Isolation is not romanticized, suffering is not mythologized, and clarity is not framed as a reward. Awareness emerges through pressure, not grace. The poem positions character as the only durable currency. Enlightenment, morality, and courage are treated as operational states rather than symbolic achievements. The darkness at the end is not a metaphor for despair but an environmental condition—one that does not prevent movement. In short: This is a declaration written after belief systems fail, comfort collapses, and excuses expire. What remains is a human being who knows where decisions come from—and accepts the cost of that knowledge.Title – I Am Me
I am not this, not that, not even that either.
Look closely: necessity has forced me to become everything,
testing the depths of this nothingness.
I am all of the above-and still nothing at all.
Life did not choose isolation for decades;
force or default-call it what you will-
kept me apart.
Like those in rehabilitation who reach surrender,
only to find truth waiting just beyond-
not a promise of grace,
but the stark realization:
I am the one around me.
This is all my reflection.
I am the one asking,
so I must be the one who answers.
This understanding is the key.
No dream, no fragile imagination
I might lose touch with.
I am not inventing illusions
or gazing at someone else.
No enlightenment theater.
No superiority claims.
No motivational chants.
No certificates demanding respect.
This is a state-
a declaration:
I am me.
In dire situations,
character and consciousness rise
to shield the body, the heart.
From the outside, it may look arrogant,
even god-like in its calm.
What is, is.
What isn’t, isn’t.
I have neither lost nor won.
I have become the one
who knows the difference.
This is not borrowed clarity
that fades outside the gate.
This is character.
I am not a saint,
not a monk,
not a wannabe king,
not a dacoit,
not a deceiver-
this is the original speaking,
a human among humans,
claiming the rights of my own being.
Refusing the lies the world has built around me,
I speak of the truth.
I know why I did what I did,
what I am doing now,
what I would do if pressed.
I know who I am-
and I move from there.
Without ability and character,
athlete and philosopher are equally hollow.
The heart is like the bar-headed goose,
gliding through thin air-
yet it needs no altitude
for the view within.
There is no halo,
no sunflower fields here either.
It is pitch black.
But I have courage.
It does not lag.
Ronie Dinosaur is walking.
