Identity In Walt Whitman's Song Of Myself

“I celebrate myself, and sing myself “And what I assume you shall assume, “For every atom belonging to me as good belongs to you.” A groan escaped my lips as Mary’s polished voice began to recite the first three lines of Walt Whitman’s Song of Myself. She had almost the entire poem memorized, and would begin to quote certain lines when they pertained to a situation, or when she was just trying to annoy me. She fell in love with the poem when she was in the eighth grade after doing some American poet project for her English class. Upon hearing my voice of discontent, Mary paused and turned her head to look at me from between the blades of grass we both laid on. Her eyes flickered to the grass between us, and pulled a blade out of the ground

She only lifted her arms above her closed eyes as if she was trying to block out as much light as she could. This stretched her nearly hollow rib cage outwards, away from her body, as if inviting any sort of creature to take residence inside her chest. “There are thousands of blades of grass on this hill, Jonas. We used to pull grass out of the ground all the time when we were younger. One blade won 't make a change.” I shifted uneasy on the grass, my eyes moving away from her for a short moment. I knew exactly where she was going with that conversation, and I wanted to stay as far away from the topic as possible. That’s why Mary and I went out to that hill. We found it when we were younger, and we both agreed it would be our hiding place; to get away from the world when we needed a break. Yet, there I was, diving head first into a problem that I wanted nothing more for it to just dissipate. “When you take away one thing, it’ll cause an effect. You take away that blade of grass, and it effects all the blades around it. Take away a person, it effects everyone who was ever close to

Mary shook her head and crossed her legs, turning her body so that we were fully facing one another. “I bequeath myself to the dirt to grow from the grass I love, If you want me again look for me under your boot-soles.” I said nothing, and continued to look at Mary, confused as to what she was really trying to say. She quickly caught on to this. “Jonas, science is just another form of poetry.” Mary’s eyes glanced down at her hands, though just like she did earlier with the sky, it didn’t seem as if she was really looking at her hands. “If things don’t go out as planned tomorrow, that doesn’t mean that I’m gone forever. I’ll still be here, in some form.” It took only a second longer to completely understand what Mary was trying to say. If she died, then her body would be given back to the world somehow. That if I wanted to find her, she would be here somewhere. It was, like I had asked for, a very scientific way to look at things. She would still be here, even if I couldn’t see her. “Mary,” I spoke up softly. “What are the last lines of that poem?” “Failing to fetch me at first keep encouraged, Missing me one place search