Do We Really Know?

One might sit and wonder
in a slew of thoughts 
like a pot of simmering slosh 
and ponder for days 
or months 
or years 
what really goes on 
between their ears. 

But to say it in speech;
attach a connotation 
to a feeling one feels 
or an experience one wishes 
they could express in the external 
when the inner domain of mind 
is wrath, unconcerned with itself. 
Do we operate in truth 
or what we’ve learned? 

And it burns to the touch 
to the taste of my tongue 
when I try to resolve 
this unrelenting equation…. 

Will this brick and mortar building 
serve a function more than 
its substance? But to take and deposit 
a presumable knowledge — like who’s 
to say what’s true and what’s not? 

When in my soul, 
I can know who I am 
but it’s what I express 
that I become in the mind 
and the soul and the body
of the other. 
Of the viewer 
or the witness. 
Or the one who 
convicts me and convinces me 
to place myself in a box. 

I guess not. 
There’s a plot to my life 
that perhaps has played out 
in a time which was before or after 
my now.
And one could proclaim: 
divine intervention! 
But scribble the script 
and rip the pages that bind me to my truth
I will do who I am. 
I will think what I know. 
And I think I know myself—  
but who really knows?