"Identification?"

Asked the gnarled old oak, a towering sentinel

Standing amid the haphazard woods.

I stood there, aloof,

A mocking smile slowly caressing the boundaries of my lips,

Clearing and forcing its sluttish self through

The age-old wrinkles

That had set in when

Life,

Hadn't been so smooth and seamless.

For how could I tell him what I didn't know myself?

Who was I, really?

A question of millions.

Was I the absorbed nerd who walked down

The leaf-strewn pavement, book in hand;

Combed hair framing seedy face;

Eyes adorned by spectacles and dark circles alike,

Trudging through the slushy premise

Of diagrams and paragraphs and numbers?

Or was I the insolent loudmouth,

Who didn't think twice before swearing in class?

Was I the loving son

Who hugged his mother every morning,

Or the oblivious boy who went to sleep

Without a single word?

Was I the foolhardy,

Who deliberately jumped the signal

Just for the thrill that accompanied,

Or the conscientious,

Who waited for a bus every afternoon?

The brashly impulsive,

Who chose the seedy side-alley to the bustling boulevard

Running through the deserted dirt track, school bag in hand,

Hoping for the risk to make up for the clock?

Or the strenuously meticulous,

Running through each step of the schedule every morning

Making sure there were no mistakes?

The eloquent,

Impressing the worst of teachers through

A well-presented speech;

Or the stammering wimp, wincing everytime

He was asked to make a phone call?

Was I the unabashed joker, flamboyance incarnate;

Or the shy, retreating introvert

That lurked within his shadow?

The guy,

Who loved violence and gory thrillers and guns and blue,

Or the girl,

Who loved bright colors and reading and baby pink?

The animal,

A vatful of lust and uncontrollable desire,

Or the human,

Who nurtured the mind, the heart, the body to control them?

The world,

Representative, in every possible dimension,

Of its collective values, norms and stereotypes,

Or me,

Representative, in every possible direction

Of his emotions, opinions and desires?

Was I...

I asked the messy, tangled debris in my being.

Was I...

I didn't get time to complete my question.

For the answer, freshly picked from the fairest of oaks

Coursed through my very blood,

And laid its presence before my quivering soul.

And I was convinced.

I smiled at the overgrown mass of green.

And parted my chapped lips

And mouthed the only characteristic that remained common

Through this uncharacteristic, yet oddly rhythmic journey

Of dips and climbs, of black and white, of good and evil;

The only pulsing vein that coursed

Through these undulating shorelines;

The only parallel thought

That ran through these bundles of controversies, a perennial stream of scarlet;

And I, a mere mouthpiece

For these gleaming words of weathered wisdom-

Spoke.

To the withered oak;

I spoke.

Who am I?

"I am."

The Oak smiled through his wise wrinkles.

And stepped aside to let me in.

"Right you are,"

He said.

"Right. I am."

I repeated.

And that's all that matters

In the end.

-x-