Who I am, is not who I set out to be.  

I am not the man I once saw standing before me, and he, looking back, does not see me, but some boy who dreamed him once, long ago, in a place I cant remember. 

I am not who I wanted to be.  I havent done the things that he has done.  I havent seen the things he has seen; I havent breathed life as he has; he who never existed. 

The things he said, I said differently, and, in doing so, became who I am. 

I see him sometimes when I close my eyes at night.  I see him in his world that is not mine, moving through it like water as I stumble through mine.

I wasted the gift I was given by the boy I was.  I squandered it in petty pleasantries, drowned it in small talk and burned it on the pyres of embarrassment and shame. 

I smothered it in routine, and all that is left is me. 

But I realized something. 

I realized that, while I havent seen the things hes seen, been the places hes been, or done the things hes done, neither has he done the things which I have done. 

Neither has he loved as I have loved. 

My accomplishments are not his. 

And that boy who I was... when I look back, I see him too.  I love him too.  And, in that, we are the same. 

But I am not that boys dream; I am that boy, and he is me.

I am not who I set out to be. 

But I am who I am, 

And that is enough.