I have always been tormented by the image of multiplicity of selves. Some days I call it richness, and other days I see it as a disease, a proliferation as dangerous as cancer. My first concept about people around me was that all of them were coordinated into a whole, whereas I was made of multitude of selves, of fragments. – Anaïs Nin
When I turned seventy,
some maniac diagnosed me –
‘multiple personality disorder.’
Which I knew from the start was wrong.
Nothing disorderly about us.
And nothing new about being scattered either.
Been that way all my life,
okay, maybe just since age ten.
Went crazy with that first shot
of testosterone.
I am never lonely,
nor do I lack for conversation.
We talk,
you just can’t hear us.
And let’s be cogent here,
you don’t listen.
Well, it would have been easier if it were put on. But the only ruse of which I’m guilty is to have pretended for so long before coming to you that nothing was wrong. Pretending that the personalities did not exist has now caused me to lose about two days. – Flora Rheta Schreiber
I never drink alone.
My name is Barker Ajax
much of the time.
My friends call me ‘Dog.’
You too can call me ‘Dog.’
When I turned seventy,
The Edge and The Hunky Blonde Drummer
With The Retro Haircut
showed up,
never left my side.
Turns out I’m in a band.
We make loud music together,
music you never hear.
Mostly I’m Bono.
Only taller.