29 - Identity

What is an identity not suffered?
You may identify as man, or king
but this is what life for you ushered.
If you seized the crown, that's another thing.

If all you are is what you were born to-
You barely deserve your returning breath.
Your identity is that which scars you,
And that which should live beyond your death.

That scar, that strife, or that yearning pain
That's yours, it means more than your name.

You were broken once, and yet here you stand
Each piece has aligned once more, in new form.
A new sculpture, so improved and unplanned,
It's part of you- like a rose and its thorn.

Or were you not broken, instead reforged.
Through your sweat and toil, Lamarck's theory true.
You poured yourself into the mould, transformed
Through that work you became a body, anew.

I can't tell you if you're done and settled,
All Man's beauty lies in the unfettered.