The speaker of "Why Am I Me?" is caught in a painful mix of jealousy, loneliness, and numbness. The poem opens with colors: emerald, viridian, olive. Green stands for the sick, helpless envy the speaker feels when looking at someone they barely know. The hurt is made worse because that person will never realize it. The speaker just laughs, smiles, and watches from a distance, and that watching is the only thing that eases the loneliness a little.
In the second half, the feelings turn into urges to break things: pots, fine china, little clay pots. Judging by the poem, smashing them is a way to feel in control and to feel anything at all. The speaker admits they have never felt loved. The colors shift to green, red, and gray, ending in "empty and tired and numb." The mood is raw and quietly desperate, and the final question, "why am I me?", sounds less like a puzzle than like exhaustion.