I'mMortalized

Too many poems begin with the phrase:
"Who am I?"
Next a list of qualities
no one cares to read
of things that make the poet
who the poet wants to be
as remembered through the poem
that begins with "Who am I?"

The list begins with
"I am a woman."
something meant to sound
profound, but lacking originality
or distinguished creativity.
yet the poet hopes to convey some
new obscurity to the reader
who longs to find the hidden meaning
that never existed behind the
phrase
"I am a woman."

the poet continues with a list of 
contradictions such as:
"I am both black and white"
though my skin is neither.
and perhaps "I love to love and fight"
though conflict breeds despair in my soul.
In other vaguaries, he or she may list his or her
qualities self-observed and perhaps
distorted by 
personal desire
and wishes to become.
"I am a rock"
but more of a pebble than a boulder.
"I am beautiful"
in the eye of some beholders.
"I am not your everyday (insert stereotype here)"
though I may fit most of the guidelines.

And then the poem doubles on itself
and begins fighting within
to bend the poet into some pretzel of 
humanity's mold
where he or she is nothing more than 
bland exotic uniqueness
through the poem that ends in the simplest phrase:
"I am me (or some likeness of the phrase
perhaps the poet's name)."

The reader tries to find the meaning
and the hidden actuality 
within the metaphors that do not
quite exist
from the page that the poet
immortalized himself or herself
in. And feeling dumb,
the reader guesses that the poet
is also intelligent and quite metaphorically gifted
beyond the scope of humanity's simple mind and 
with time, he or she loses the poet's empty meaning
and simply says
farewell to a poet who will neither
be loved nor
remembered for his or her
attempt at self-immortalization.