My mask is female. A designer. A resident of Uptown, Minneapolis.

I am my mother.

I am my father.

I am the collection of every feeling I have ever felt.

I am every thought that has ever crossed my mind. I am my memories, my passions, my desires, my hungers and my pain.

I am the tenuous bond of electrons that hold this body together.

I am the sum of every person I have ever met.

I am more than a list of bullet points wantonly pinned to a cork board.

I am me.

I am confined to this tiny fraction of all the knowledge of all the world that this body has seen. Tinted by the filter of these hazel eyes.

But if I could be you.

If I could dive inside and live between your ears.

For just a moment.

If I could watch the world from behind the panes of your eyes. If I could step inside your skin and feel the weight. The magnitude. Of being you. . . . How? Would I have any room left for hate. For condescension, malice, jealousy or anger?

How? Could I feel anything-

But love?