Excerpt: My Alter Self

“I wonder if it would be better to allow
My alter ego, my alter self to take a bow
Would it be so wrong to be revealed?
What for so very long has been under a heavy seal
The hot wax of ultimatums, consequences and rejections
Pressed down heavy with the imprint of quilt and scorn
Spreads the flow of resistance to trap inside
What others feel I must hide

Where was it decided that my essence should be denied?
And by whom and why should I abide?
As fall’s gown flows in red and golden colors as she releases
The leaves falling because life within ceases
So the sand of time flows through the hourglass of my life
Awaiting the key to unlock my heart and soul from the strife
Of an never ending tug of war within myself to give
And still have a whisper, a breath, a sigh enough to allow my own truth to live.”

By: Rona Rochelle

I found myself exhausted and drained in the midst of work, phone calls which are stressful to say the least. In the middle of everything I stopped and wrote a poem. It started off with, “I wonder if it would be better to allow, my alter ego, my alter self to take a bow.” The poem took all of maybe 6 minutes to write, and amazingly enough it wrapped up the essence of my internal struggle that has been going on for nearly a lifetime. The poem continues: “Would it be so wrong to be revealed, what so very long has been under a heavy seal? The hot wax of ultimatums, consequences and rejections pressed down heavy with the imprint of guilt and scorn…” As I read this poem over it became more and more alive to me. I sent it to my daughter in an email. Days later she read it and was so taken with it she wanted me to have it published somehow. I smiled and said, read it to me and she did. I traveled to another dimension, another world that was somehow living side by side with my world and my life. As my daughter’s voice carried the words of this poem to my ears, I began to see a vision forming clearer and clearer, closer and closer to me. She is out there I thought, she is so close and yet so far. Listening to my daughter praise the poem, I smiled and told her that I found it amazing too, so much was said and told in with so very little time and space.
The days passed and another morning brought the poem to surface again, and I find it follows me unlike no other poem I have written. I never wrote poems, although I loved to read them now and then. But a friend who writes poetry challenged me one day to write a poem for fun. I said no, it wasn’t me. I wrote stories, not poems. But she pushed for me to take the challenge and so I did, and what I wrote came so easy and like this poem I have falling me around, this first poem was surprisingly very meaningful and held truths from deep within. Now that this poem as well has brought such passion with so few words of life and spirit, of time and soul I do believe it is something I should pursue. Maybe not for acclaim or even validation, but just for me to reflect upon like all my other writings and journaling that reveals so much, why do I hesitate so to do it more.
I have begun to really wonder who this “other self” is, and though I believe I know of her, I don’t believe I know her. She comes upon me like a flash of light, or a flicker of a flame, so brief yet so real, so clear. Is she just a figment of my imagination? She is like a phantom in my life and I think at times that she the other one that I could have been had my choices been different. But why does she still come to me? Why does she still appear in my dreams, in my visions, in my deepest searches for myself? She takes no physical form, she has no audible sound, she is like a cloud that floats by or a rush of a wind through my hair that reminds me of her. Like a dream of a lover who may still yet be, or a memory of the star crossed lover that can never be again, she fades in and out of my mind, my spirit as if I have not given her the rightful place in my life.