i think? therefore

i might be sold out

of feelings

but how do i know i ever

really owned them, anyway?

taught, traded, absorbed.

learned, kept, lost.

or rubbed off, discarded, twisted?

made up, repolished, replenished?

were they mine to begin with?

what originates from my brain -- no my heart --

and what's just the leftovers,

pieced together from watching

other people's charred hearts:

their own reflections projected,

my own mine replaced by the

standards and the expectations

so easily devoured into my own

being until i cannot untangle

what i was -- if i was ever

do i own my own mind,

or is it something entirely

alien

after all,

built by others and echoing retellings,

diluting me into

?