Why I Call Myself an Honest Con Artist

Seven years ago, I was introduced to the world of slam poetry. This was pre-Def Poetry, pre-Bowery Poetry Club, pre-Me. I was a shell of a person, unable to understand or control my devious chameleon ways. I was an "acceptable opportunist"*, always shape-shifting to fit the role of whatever person best fit a situation. I was equal parts street-smart hustler and book-smart student. I did people wrong, but played their hearts and minds so well that they excused my behavior and let me back into their lives (and their beds). I took advantage of feelings, played people for fools, and felt entitled to my actions; I was, undoubtedly, a shadow without any source of acknowledgement, and in that sad state, I was too pathetic for even ME to care about. It was a circle of conundrums: I was too pitiful for even my own acknowledgment.

Poetry fed into my need to distill my various realities. My rich JAP-y friends were immortalized in funny fluff pieces. My "around the way" girls were placed in syrupy sentimental shit. And everyone else found a spot in my canon of perspectives: the sexually abused high school student, the commitment phobic, the kleptomaniac. There was something so powerful and beautiful in figuring everyone out - and my God complex didn't help matters. I felt like it was my job to figure out everything and everyone. Furthermore, I felt like I had to run that shit as if it were mine to run. It was as if I needed supreme validation: someone had to know that I was that good. That I could keep people in the dark about me, even as they all professed to being my "best friend." I needed people to believe that there was no one above me, and at the same time be conducting myself in a manner contradictory to peoples' beliefs about me. Only then could I truly be said to "own" people. Only then could I really be believed to be the ultimate in anything I did.

The fact is, I was born a fully-formed visionary; I had been born ready to rule the world. True: I hadn't been equipped with a conscience telling me that my natural instinct was correct. No one ever told me to trust my mind or my body. No one ever taught me how to take advantage of a situation without feeling dirty or sinful. No one ever validated the fact that I knew better than most. But I knew instinctively what to do. I knew instinctively how to morph into versions of myself and that would successfully complete specific tasks.

Now, I look back and am aware that I was (am?) an "Honest Con Artist." I had somehow rationalized my actions and beliefs into easily digestable justifications of my id. Without a sense of "Me" I couldn't identify with my actions, and thus was able to do anything. Now, it's like I'm a paleontologist, studying the bare bones of my situation. Who am I? How'd I become this version of myself? And is that version of myself - the present, ever-changing, me - good? Am I a good person?

I strip away the walls which form my boxed-in life, and wonder where in that context is the Me.