Identity

I am God
He said excitedly
Approaching my desk —
A sign held out before him
I am God
In bold red letters

Here’s the mathematical proof
He said
Placing leaflets on my desk

He said he was writing
A book about it

People nearby overheard
Smirking after he left

I smiled too
Murmuring he could use some antipsychotics —
Yet he seemed harmless enough

I told no one
That I, too —
Not unlike him —
Was persuaded
That I am God
And I had already
Written a book about it

But meeting him
Made me shrink
From publishing it
Under my name —
For he was giving
God
A bad name

Who’s the greater megalomaniac
I wonder —
Him, or me
Who’s more honest
More courageous
More convinced
Who fools himself more

Why must it come to shame and hiding —
Like me
Raving alone in quiet dark of night
Or reckless abandon, like him
Marching among strangers
With placard and leaflets —
For those
Who must claim to be God

Why the shame —

Yet there’s none
In claiming to be
Human —
Man, woman
Jew, Muslim
Hindu, Shinto

He may have been
Braver than I —

But they —
Who parade their human identities
Boldly, shamelessly

Filling books, libraries
Convincing generations, civilisations
Entire cultures
Of their smallness

Should I be more ashamed —
Or they

I know —
It’s neither him
Nor me

And it wasn’t him
Giving God a bad name —

It was me