IDK — Summary

I do not know who I am anymore I am told Told who I am and must be

In the days today I am told How I must dress, How I must act and How I must behave

I cannot follow my dreams I do not even know what they are anymore Or where they have gone It is blackness that I see

I am lost in this school of fish The ocean is big, but it is empty It is also far more complicated

So many currents put their pressure on me Family, friends and peers, work mates and partners And I change for each and every one

Am I the obedient one my family holds so dear? Am i the risk taker? The one my friends have come to know? Am I the hard worker, that helps any and everyone? Or am I the one who will put you first over myself?

I do not know anymore

I uses to know what I wanted But a chore it became For the currents have pushed me to do more then I could handle

Now I am left, in a hole With more then I can handle With amnesia Forgetting who I am

Show the whole poemHide the poem

Learn Poems app

Try the Learn Poems app

Everything from the website trainer, and more: new exercises, voice recording and sharing, reminders, quick review.

In "IDK," the speaker feels they have lost track of who they are. Everyone around them, including family, friends, coworkers and partners, seems to tell them how to dress, act and behave, and they shape themselves to fit each person. The poem pictures this as being a fish in a school, pushed around by many currents. The ocean is huge but empty, which suggests the speaker feels alone even in a crowd.

The questions in the middle show the confusion most clearly. Is the speaker the obedient child, the risk taker, the hard worker, or the one who puts others first? Each role belongs to someone else's idea of them. By the end, the pressure has become too much, and the speaker is "in a hole" with "amnesia," forgetting themselves entirely. The mood is tired, bleak and quietly desperate. The plain, simple language and the repeated "I do not know" make the feeling sound honest and unpolished, like someone thinking out loud.

Read also

More by mouse

All poems
Romanticmouse

Morrow

Dust to dawn she waits, For her sun to rise The beauty that he holds, Words unable to describe
Sadmouse

It is I

Its in the rivers, oh how it haunts Me Its in the lakes and all the seas No matter where I look, They're always taunting me
Sadmouse

Lonely

I walked along the city streets today The world it seems to past me I see over a hundred people as they pass me on the dirty city streets But my walk is lonely