its what's inside

“There's a mess inside you:

You clean the outside.”

― Anonymous, The Dhammapada

____________________________

Who am I?

Do you know?

Do I know?

What is pretty certain

Is that the person I look at in the mirror

And the person you greet

From day to day

Is not me

It is a fabrication

Of who I want to be

It is me

Cleaned up

Sanitized

But not me

For inside are all the things I hide

The dirty wrinkled things

Which I have stuffed into the closets

Of my being

Hoping they will go away

Of their own according

Hoping you will not see

I know I am not alone

Most of us hide

Behind pleasant facades of our own making

We rumble through each day

Our hard but brittle shells

Colliding with other shells

No real damage

But no real contact either

Masks beaming at masks

None of us really in touch

With each other

Or even with ourselves

Insight is missing

Delusion is high

Sometimes it seems

We would do better

Spending a little less time

Polishing the outside

And erecting our facades

And a little more time cleaning out the closets

Of our souls

For it is what’s inside that makes us who we are

Not our titles

Our looks

Our possessions

Our successes

It really all comes down

To where the heart is