There are seventeen me’s inside my head this morning:
Three invited, eleven once-friends, nine unknown.
The Venn diagrams of how this works defeat us,
All us me’s, we I’s. We divert ourselves with grammar
In the hopes some of us have of never thinking
About anything momentous. Belfries belch
Black clouds of bats that turn out, on reflection,
To be thoughts thought shredded when we put them down.

Put down to raw experience, or wry
Assumptions on the state or states of things,
These thoughts bat all us wee me’s on the head
Until some think epiphany is nigh
But others claim it’s Stephanie, or films
We’ve seen so often we feel they’re real life.
We are a quorum of disorganised, a choir
Of heebie-jeebies hormones hunkering down

In a hamlet we’ve created from the husks
Of relationships we had once, or imagined.
Some of us leave, their body doubles bound back
Into my head (our head?) and offer wisdom
In the form of bromides we I’s have heard so often
We think it’s us who’re saying them, and nod
In affirmation until, nodding off,
We startle, take strong measures, blink, and scoff.