Selfhood

I shoplifted food in college. 
My roommates were not against shoplifting.
My core personality, the judgmental and mildly obsessive one, 

the one who was me most of the time, 
disapproved of shoplifting. 

But when you're a multiple personality, 
the alternate--in my case, 

the childish, impulsive one, who fancied herself a free spirit--

was quick to justify. 

I'm not a typical multiple: I wasn't hung out of windows 
or locked in basements. 

But my mother, with her explosive temper, 

and my father with his cold, sarcasm scared me. 

And the Catholic church with its many levels of hell and sin, 

scared me too.  Being a child under constant threat 

of violence and damnation

may have caused my selfhood to seek safety in disintegration, 

a way of compartmentalizing all that angst. 

I'm not sure having two personalities is an illness. 

People are naturally bisexual, biracial, bicultural, 

why not bi-personality? 

That's how my free spirit sees it. 

In the opinion of my core personality, however, 

being multiple is just a defense mechanism. 

She's convinced my alternate personality 

craves attention, that my alternate slammed that block of cheese 

on the kitchen counter for applause. My free spirit asks, 

Aren't we all really multiples? 

Look at all of our previous selves--selves we can't even remember--

the preschooler who was terrified of the dark, 

the teenager who stuffed her bra with tissue. 

And don't we disappear every night in our deepest sleep? 

And don't we turn into Pterodactyluae in our dreams? 

So really is there a one and only true self? 

One that can't slither Houdini-like out of one belief into another? 

Selfhood is a mystery.