The Innumerable

By: Fernando Pessoa

The innumerable live in us;
when I think or feel, I do not know
who it is thinks or feels.

I am merely a place
of feeling or thought.
I have more souls than one.

There are more I’s than myself.

I exist nonetheless
indifferent to them all.
I silence them: I speak.

The conflicting impulses
of what I feel or do not feel
dispute inside who I am.

I ignore them. They dictate nothing
to the one I know. I write.

You can find this poem in Pessoa’s remarkable book — A Little Larger Than the Entire Universe: Selected Poems