Questions of identity

Who am I? Who are we, I mean really? How is it that we only feel at home among strangers, that we can be irrevocably linked to a culture that we abhor, that we can't understand, yet from which we can't seem to disentangle ourselves. It is laughable, teaching questions of identity, as if I had some sort of authority on these hyphenated identities, how many different ones can we tack on to the end? I wonder. When does it stop making a difference? M. was having a crisis today, he says, "I don't know where my country is anymore, I don't know what it is..." I want to make the tears go away, I want to make the pain go away, but there is little that I can do for comfort, still, I wipe the tears away as fast as they roll down the cheeks. "I don't know you... Who are you?" "What good is it to live morally, what difference does it make, it doesn't make you happier." "No, maybe not, but what are the alternatives... you are scaring me, you are capable of anything. Look at yourself, who are you? Is this what you want?" "I don't know what I want. I don't know who I am." We were just two people, it was just an afternoon, looking out the window, from the balcony, it was just some sheet music. I hijacked your life, I know, it was mutual, where will you go? I know you can't leave, but if you could, where would you go? Why does the music make it better? It's ok, you know, to go home, wherever home is, to make music, to be the star, to play for the throngs of thousands, I know, maybe it will be better, to be alone in a room full of people, on a stage.

There is no undressing, not the way that I would do it, not the blanket, staring straight ahead into the headlights challenging, dead pan, unblinking, unwavering, piece by piece devolving into pieces of myself. You would let the music be enough, the music is never enough for me, it is only one small piece, but where would I be without your guitar, stripped of my grounding, devoid of my invisible support?

Who am I? An exile in my own home, it mirrors your exile, mine is a linguistic exhile, yours a physical one, but it is more than that, does a shared set of common experiences constitute culture? Are a group of mutually acceptable mores, habits and customs sufficient to bind us to one another, huddled in a group of strangers confronted with the others, even stranger than themselves? When does it make sense? When does it get easier? When does it stop hurting with the words tearing through the soft flesh around my heart? Why can't I have more than this, increasingly more, why can't there be freedom, from oneself, from one's fears, from one's searing isolation? Why is it that love disintegrates into mutual dependence, scalding our senses with scathing tongues? Why is it never enough? Who are you? Where are you? I can't see anything but me reflected in your eyes and I don't know who I have become.