Day 14 - PAD Challenge - If I Were Everything I'm Not

Cocoa Beach, Florida
If I were... - a beginning with endless possibilities, is the prompt for Day 14 of the WD 2014 April PAD Challenge. The idea is to use these words, fill in the blank for the title, and then write a poem. My mind landed on one possibility and then another... If I were perfect... If I were your favorite fantasy (I might go back to that one)... If I were the sun... If I were your heart's desire... and so on. I came back to If I were perfect several times, but it just didn't feel quite right. As I went about my morning chores, I started thinking about what I'm not, what I'd like to be, who I'm not, who I'd like to be. Finally, I landed on the following "If I were everything I'm not...." I had no idea where I could go with it, but it haunted me, so eventually I wrote it down and immediately the second line showed up on the screen almost without thought. Then I was stuck. I had some abstract thoughts about trees and the sea and the journey to become one's best self... After a couple of hours, the rest of the words came to me... 

Here's my If I were... poem

If I Were Everything I'm Not

If I were everything I’m not
Would I still be me
As I strive to step into me
I sometimes imagine
Being like a tree
Growing ever upward and outward
Strong and beautiful
Or I imagine
Being like the sea
Filled with ever flowing water
Drifting up on distance shores
Taking with me whatever I discover in my reach
Then I look in the mirror
I see everything I am
I see everything I’m not
I realize I am both
Everything I am
Everything I’m not
As I struggle on this journey
To find my place as the best me
I am neither a tree nor the sea
I am simply me
Standing today in the wind and sun
Emanating the calm of my core
Combating the chaos of my heart
Embracing the nature of my mind
Finding my connection to Gaia
In this every changing journey
Of finding what I am and what I am not
Realizing how you define me
So often reflects what you don’t see
Rather than the truth of who I am
So, I stamp the label you apply to me
“Return to sender”
You can keep your judgments
I am everything I am and everything I’m not
I don’t dream of being anyone but me
All I want is to unleash the best of me
To roam the world standing still like a tree
To find my footing flowing like the sea
To be all my contradictions
To know love and be love
To open my heart and mind to possibility
To make fantasy reality
To create reality from fantasy
I want to be it all
Because I know in my core
I am…
Everything I am
I am…
Everything I am not
I am…
Me


T. L. Cooper is an author and poet whose work aims to empower and inspire through an exploration of the human condition. Her poems, short stories, articles, and essays have appeared online, in books, and in magazines. Her published books include a collection of short stories, Soaring Betrayal, her Silhouette Poetry Series, and a novel, All She Ever Wanted. She grew up on a farm in Tollesboro, Kentucky. She currently lives in Albany, Oregon with her husband and three cats.

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