It seems like such a simple question. I graduated highschool when I was 17 and started college the next fall have just turned 18 and although I didn’t know where my life would lead, most certainly I knew I was Somebody. It only took a string of deaths in my family, the last from that time being my mother, being chiseled out of my inheritance by a well-meaning father and a slow burning crash of a mental break out of college and down while working at McDonald’s before I realized that A I was a paranoid schizophrenic alone in the world and a nobody. By then I was an ancient 24 turning 25. The world I once lived in was gone, a catastrophe that on the personal level is only matched by a nuclear weapon. I was broken and I didn’t have all the pieces so I spent from then until now trying to resemble what was left, this next summer I will turn 48 and it has been a long haul and I have learned who I am and now I am going to tell you.

I am here and there, behind and underfoot, all around and no where,

I am the person you speak of in the third person while I am standing beside you,

I am the one the disappears and no one notices,

I know I existed before but for the longest time I thought I was a figment of my wifes imagination

I am the lost cause, the waste of space, the problem, the fifth column, the unwashed, the enemy at home,

I am the one who waits your tables, cleans your toilets, shovels your shit, moves your lawn,

I live around the corner, down the street, on the wrong side of the tracks or across the hall.

I am the soft touch, the pigeon, the mark, the easy sale, the gravy train, the free couch,

I am the smiling face that holds the door open for you, or reaches where you can not,

I am the person that does the good deed with full knowledge of the punishment to follow for if there is no risk then it is not truly a good deed,

I am the giant that cast no shadow, the face in the crowd, the silent witness, the hushed voice, the word that cannot be spoken, the name that will not pass your lips,

I am the expendable, the unnecessary, the mouse that flees the foot step the fear of being noticed for if I am

Then I am the suspect in custody, the bad egg, the burden on society, the reason most commonly given

I am the beaten, the bloodied, the broken, the slave who will not knee,

I have stood eye to eye with the devil and I did not step back

I have faced my death twice with my eyes open,

I know fear,

I am the statistical anomaly, the 65% who earn one penny on every dollar, the undone wrong, the uncommitted sin, the stain that cannot be removed

I am the one who give up his place in the line to anyone who needs it, I am patience,

I am the true believer and the atheist, the skeptic and the devotee, the teacher and the student,

I am the calculating savage psychopath who cares because I chose to

I am light on the darkest of nights, I know the way through the abyss

I am invisible, there is power in not being seen

I will have no tombstone, my passing will only be noted amongst the numbers of the dead and the dying,

I am the shadow that steals your breath, the foot fall the causes hesitation, the chill that makes your hair stand on end

I see the humanity in everyone and the animal we often confuse for it

I am the calm voice between the police and the protesters, I am the quiet in the middle of the mayhem

I am the key to the gate that holds back the screaming madness

I am the sentinel, cold stone and hot blood that stands between the city and the massing uncertainty

I am the worst case scenario, the ground that cannot be held, the highest probability of failure, the inscrutable who lays his cards on the table,

I am the lone wolf, the cat in heat, the rabid dog, the chipmunk and the dragon who will not sit in judgement

I am the hesitation after the blow, the second chance,

I am the hidden dancer that only the purest of hearts can appreciate

I have been, am and will be, the ever open eye, the undefended ear, I see, I listen I remember, I know

And I have learned that every person sees and hears the world differently, that chaos comes when we insulate ourselves from that fact

I am waiting, my time is coming, our time is coming, there will be no blood, no bullets, for we will be the ones left, the last ones standing, the survivors

we will inherit

Are you one of us?

If you have to think about it then the answer is NO.