Azure Jane Lunatic (Azz) 🌺 (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
azurelunatic) wrote2003-09-01 01:07 am
azurelunatic) wrote2003-09-01 01:07 am
Song of the chameleon
"I am, whatever you say I am. If I wasn't, then why would I say I am? In the paper, the news, everyday I am. I don't know it's just the way I am." --Eminem, "The Way I Am" The Marshall Mathers LP
When I say that I love Darkside because I like the person I am when I'm around him, I'm not kidding. Seems like everyone expects you to be someone, something, and each and every one of them expects something a little different.
Me, I follow need. Within reason, of course. But where there is something that I am fit for, a job that many could do, but I'm on hand for, or could do best, there I'm attracted, and I'm made to stay until my work is done. And while I'm doing it, my personality molds to fit.
I'm sure you've seen it in your journals, some of you. My comments to your entries are slanted ever so slightly from my normal diction. I mimic your style, your attitude, only it's me talking, not you. Song of the chameleon. I become my surroundings.
Sometimes my surroundings are ugly, and so become I. I hated myself when I was with BJ, because I became like him, and I hated him.
I don't always become who you say you want me to be. I become who you act like you want me to be. I show you me, but filtered through you some more -- I see who you show me, and I put on that skin, at least at first. Gods alone know how you wind up seeing me.
They're not just personae, either. They are me. I assimilate you. If I like the me that you make me to be, I keep it. If I don't, it doesn't stay, and usually, neither do you. After you've seen the real me, you may not want to keep me...
My persona attunes and shifts like the wind, always me, rarely the same. You want a genius, I show my brain; you want a Lunatic, I am insane. All these fragments of me could have been my children. Instead, sometimes they escape through my fingers onto a page. They could have been me. They are still me, each one another never-born orphan. They're all me. I hear your voice and steal it, borrow your words and hide within them. I wrap up so tightly that sometimes, all you see is yourself, moving as if someone else was pulling your strings. That's me, in there, somewhere. My skin doesn't change, but I am the chameleon. I was a preppy on the bus. I'm a crazy cat lady. I'm an eager student. I'm a surly undergrad. I'm a minister, counselor, soothsayer. I wouldn't be half that if someone didn't make me so, didn't expect me to be.
Most people only ever see the mirror. Here in this journal, I'm much the mirror sometimes. I give honest, factual, and incomplete accountings of my day. My emotional ramblings? Usually, I only make the ones about Darkside ever into text. Love is safe. Love is intense, love is expected, and if the power of that makes up the gap between that which I do feel and that which I say, no one will be the wiser, and I remain shallow, and therefore safe.
The mirror is all that some people may ever see. I drop into counselor-mode easily, where I listen without judging, and reflect back any comparable things from my own life. It's a defense. It provides the illusion of intimacy, but it isn't necessarily anything I consider important. I don't give those out without a certain degree of trust. When someone trusts me, I can't always trust back...
I am whoever you see I am. If you see it strongly enough, I may become it. Am I sober and withdrawn, or bouncy and giggly? Am I unforthcoming or gossipy? If I share myself with you, is it because I want you to see inside me, or is it me hiding behind insignificant details? Do I really have that fucking much energy, or is it just the caffiene?
None of it is really me, and all of it is. Some of it more so, and some of it less... and it changes based on who's around.
I like the self I am when I'm with Darkside the best of all, to the point where I marginalized the former primary persona. Joan-prime-that-was is Marah now.
When I say that I love Darkside because I like the person I am when I'm around him, I'm not kidding. Seems like everyone expects you to be someone, something, and each and every one of them expects something a little different.
Me, I follow need. Within reason, of course. But where there is something that I am fit for, a job that many could do, but I'm on hand for, or could do best, there I'm attracted, and I'm made to stay until my work is done. And while I'm doing it, my personality molds to fit.
I'm sure you've seen it in your journals, some of you. My comments to your entries are slanted ever so slightly from my normal diction. I mimic your style, your attitude, only it's me talking, not you. Song of the chameleon. I become my surroundings.
Sometimes my surroundings are ugly, and so become I. I hated myself when I was with BJ, because I became like him, and I hated him.
I don't always become who you say you want me to be. I become who you act like you want me to be. I show you me, but filtered through you some more -- I see who you show me, and I put on that skin, at least at first. Gods alone know how you wind up seeing me.
They're not just personae, either. They are me. I assimilate you. If I like the me that you make me to be, I keep it. If I don't, it doesn't stay, and usually, neither do you. After you've seen the real me, you may not want to keep me...
My persona attunes and shifts like the wind, always me, rarely the same. You want a genius, I show my brain; you want a Lunatic, I am insane. All these fragments of me could have been my children. Instead, sometimes they escape through my fingers onto a page. They could have been me. They are still me, each one another never-born orphan. They're all me. I hear your voice and steal it, borrow your words and hide within them. I wrap up so tightly that sometimes, all you see is yourself, moving as if someone else was pulling your strings. That's me, in there, somewhere. My skin doesn't change, but I am the chameleon. I was a preppy on the bus. I'm a crazy cat lady. I'm an eager student. I'm a surly undergrad. I'm a minister, counselor, soothsayer. I wouldn't be half that if someone didn't make me so, didn't expect me to be.
Most people only ever see the mirror. Here in this journal, I'm much the mirror sometimes. I give honest, factual, and incomplete accountings of my day. My emotional ramblings? Usually, I only make the ones about Darkside ever into text. Love is safe. Love is intense, love is expected, and if the power of that makes up the gap between that which I do feel and that which I say, no one will be the wiser, and I remain shallow, and therefore safe.
The mirror is all that some people may ever see. I drop into counselor-mode easily, where I listen without judging, and reflect back any comparable things from my own life. It's a defense. It provides the illusion of intimacy, but it isn't necessarily anything I consider important. I don't give those out without a certain degree of trust. When someone trusts me, I can't always trust back...
I am whoever you see I am. If you see it strongly enough, I may become it. Am I sober and withdrawn, or bouncy and giggly? Am I unforthcoming or gossipy? If I share myself with you, is it because I want you to see inside me, or is it me hiding behind insignificant details? Do I really have that fucking much energy, or is it just the caffiene?
None of it is really me, and all of it is. Some of it more so, and some of it less... and it changes based on who's around.
I like the self I am when I'm with Darkside the best of all, to the point where I marginalized the former primary persona. Joan-prime-that-was is Marah now.