hinted life - a poem

unsettling at times, to discover
all along this other person
living in the same skin as me
who at times takes flight
over a mountain peak, hovering,
fashioned with bamboo feathers,
or assumes the role of judge,
condemning me to years of regret,
certainly a constant critic, always
observing my motives and deeds,
never sleeping, this 'other', yet
always nebulous, only somewhat
alive in dreams, usually in the
backstory of any story I'm living,

wholeness is a myth, if taken
to mean united, singular,
when it comes to living with
my better half, we are two,
distinctive, divided,

I wonder frequently which life wins,
the manifest 'me' that goes about
making coffee, eating, sleeping,
assuming the 'I' of me,
or that one of my guest, the
hint-life that is lived and only
partially, yet real as the sheen
from an apple