To Face Myself

I am at heart the product of my choices
An unrepentant miasma of voices
Echoing my past

What once was a fractured duality
Is now singularly clear

One face for them
Swaggering boisterous typical male
Redneck chauvinistic epithets
Uttered out of expectation

Must fit in
Must belong
Must do this
Must be wrong

One face for me
Crumbling expectations
Shattered plans
Anger
Shame
Merciless self-flagellating
Shame

Must be evil
Must be crazy
Must be tainted
Must repent!

A decade of denial
Prayer
Misery
Bewilderment
Shame

Loneliness

Then a choice
The choice to accept
Become whole
No longer two faces but one

Shouldered tonnage evaporates with
Self acceptance
And finally buried denials

Damned? Not I.
Expectations be damned.

I choose to be honest.

To love
And be loved
As I was meant to love.

To face myself and be free!