Defining

Another short poem I wrote early this year when I was in an irritable mood.

“I am a doctor. A writer. A teacher. A grocer.”
Is this what I must define myself as?
By my career? Or do I define myself with a few
characteristics that really mean nothing,
for can three words: shy, quiet and serious really
describe this moving body of flesh and thoughts?
Do I define myself as what social stereotype I fit into?
What if I loathe most of the creatures in such a stereotype?
If I do not know who I am and everyone else is so sure of their being
perhaps I was not meant to be at all.
I like to think on nights when my identity is particularly absent,
and my body particularly transparent,
that who I am- which is what?- is floating
in a green meadow somewhere, with yellow flowers
and a blue sky. But of course it could simply be in me-
whatever it is- and this cursed mind and soul and body
are who I am. Which is not very good at all- I’m having
very little fun with all this wondering.
Perhaps I was made to wonder.