One with the Bored

Am I?

I exist

Sum

Cogito

ergo

sum

sum sum sum
said Popeye

Are you?
Did I create you
by thinking of you?

Did you create me
by thinking of me?
Who are you?
How would I know?

Maybe a group project -
All who thought
of me
created me
but where did that idea
come from?

Which one of you is to blame?
Did you get it right?
And yet we know each other

Not

No one
ever
exists in the same way
sees the same thing
hears the same thing
We are not one

We infer
We imply
and assume
and empathize
and approximate
and interpret
and guess

What it’s like to be
someone else

Are we one
with the Borg?
Would we ever want to be?

To invade, to know,
to feel another’s thoughts
To see and hear and feel through
someone else’s senses?

Not the “presentation” thoughts -
the ones we polish
and clean
and neatly arrange

No -

The ones that appear
unbidden
unwanted -
“I didn’t think
what I just thought
and no one
must ever know”

Or to be invaded, even by those dearest
and closest?
For them to know
the thoughts we hide
from ourselves?

“I know how you feel”
not ever you do
An approximation, a sympathetic noise,
not statement of fact

I don’t know how I feel
from one hour to the next -
Do you remember that itch
on your left arm
yesterday?

Or was it the right?
Or was it more like a pin prick?
And what was I doing
when it happened?

And we forget pain
and hurt
and sorrow -

Well, not forget -
but we’re programmed
to put it in a dark place
and hide it
until something or someone touches it
accidentally?
on purpose?
Does it matter?

It returns
until we bury it again.