Integrating the Impostor

Sometimes 
I feel like
An impostor...
Like whoever I am
Now
And have been since middle school
Isn't the original...
Like I was implanted
Into a pre-existing human being...
I have issues
Clearly remembering
Before a certain age...
There are memories,
But they are few
And disjointed,
Mostly of minutiae 
And inanimate things,
Toys, mostly,
Few of people...
I don't recall
Much of what I 
Thought or did
Other than immerse myself
In things,
Plastic dinosaurs, 
Green army men,
Things that clicked,
And popped, and rattled...
Flashing lights and gears and motors...
Who I am now
Feels like someone
Who stepped in
To a not quite empty shell...
As if that child
Dissociated
And split...
Handed over the reigns
To a stronger personality...
Denied its totality 
For a confused fragment
Who grew to take over 
The vessel...
What did I do?
What happened to me?
Was it shame or trauma?
The me I am today
Fell from the sky,
Surface burning
Through the atmosphere, 
A shooting star...
I left a crater on impact...
A slight indentation 
Of the left side of my ribcage 
Beneath a port-wine
Birthmark...
When photo enhanced,
It looks like claw marks,
Two arcs
Parallel to each other...
Surrounded by mottled flesh
Like scar tissue...
Did I claw my way in,
Or did I claw my way out...
Did I just set in
Like an infection?
Burn in like a fever?
I've always felt
Like I came from
Somewhere else,
Anywhere, but here...
Some wandering entity
That wanted to feel
What it was like 
To be human...
And then became entrapped...
Flesh body suits
Are addicting...
Being human
Is distracting,
A distraction on a soul's journey 
Towards unity...
I question the necessity of it...
A fork in the road
That leads to
Turmoil and entrapment...
Engulfment...
I've never felt truly
At home
In this world...
No matter where I've been,
Or who I've been with...
Strange lands and separation 
Are the wanderer's lot...
Did that child
Dissociate?
Did it re-create
A new self
Just as conflicted and confused 
As the original,
But 
Different?
Shaken like an
Etch-a-sketch,
And cleared?
Or was it an already extant 
Personality
Waiting
For signs of weakness?
Wolf in sheep's clothing,
Or vice versa?
Angel or demon? 
The spirit of a djinn?
Some extra-dimensional entity
That craved a human experience,
But got more
Than it bargained for
And became a caged specimen? 
A butter fly in a jar
Entangled
In this web of gossamer illusions? 
No way out,
And no way home?
Turning over every stone,
And splitting every log
To find myself?
The harder you struggle,
The more entangled you become...
It makes you strong, 
And it makes you weak...
You hold up the world
As it weighs you down...
Time isn't remembered chronologically...
20 years ago
Could have been just yesterday,
And yesterday
Could have been
The beginning of time...
Just 4 years after
The death of my daughter
And I forgot the exact year
She existed...
August 6, 1993 - October 31, 1993...
It happened on a Sunday...
The dedication
In a book I published in 1997
Lists those aforementioned dates
As 1994...
So,
I have a habit
Of Dissociating,
Apparently...
I use my logical mind
To research
The emotional world...
I use my intellect
To piece together
The bits and pieces...
Poring through
Anecdotal evidence, hear-say,
And the many notes I have taken
Along the way...
A half century of research
And I feel no closer
To knowing
Where I began...
Logically,
I know this body
Has parents, family...
I know it was born...
But the psyche?
Its origins still elude me...
I have no choice
But to keep digging,
Obsessive
And tenacious...
I have a hard time letting go
Of the things I do remember,
But they aren't the back-story
That I need to know...
They are simply 
The consequences 
Of what I can't...
More scar tissue
Formed around
That initial impact
Where I crashed down to Earth
Shattering its ribs
Just below the heart...