Unauthorized - a poem about misunderstandings and legacies

Unauthorized

I have a reputation for living life easy and free.
It's rarely been that way—not in reality.
They wonder where I got my talent
but I was groomed by novelists
crafting a biography
so unauthorized.

If I leave no child, no blood legacy,
will it matter how the rest remember me?
Is truth not the goddess that I believed she was?
Is there any record of these lives?

After all—after all—after all,
I am breathing—I am safe.
What comes next just might rebuild
the bridges that had to break.

Had to burn.
Had to learn.

They would never understand if I taught a 101.
I could implant chips but even then it can't be done.
You could erect towers to the dreams that died for them.
Not even then—not even then.

I'll seek the solace they believe I've always held.
I'll whittle the life they fantasize has already been mine.
I'll be bold and bizarre, summer cruel and winter far,
and I'll outdo their fiction from the page to the stage.

So tabloid trash me.
Go on, bash me.
I am not afraid.
There's nothing you can say
that the waves won't wash away.