Poetry

"They hate you if you're clever and they despise a fool,
'till you're so fucking crazy, you can't follow their rules."

- John Lennon, Working Class Hero

I

If I know all the answers,
I'm too smart.

If I keep my hand down,
I'm wasting my potential.

If I say what's on my mind,
Parent-Teacher Conferences result.

If I don't say anything,
I'm bottling my emotions.

II

When I make a joke,
I'm a smartass.

When I'm polite,
People tell me it's unusual.

When I use logic and reason,
I'm ignoring experience and emotion.

When I use my experinece,
They tell me I'm emotional and illogical.

III

I say we should care about children,
And they call me a Communist.

I say they are being illogical,
And they call me arrogant and self-righteous.

I make a generalization,
And I'm unfairly characterizing other people.

If I call them on the same,
I'm not being tolerant.

IV

I think hate crimes should be punished,
and I'm a Nazi.

I cry when I read about dead American soldiers I knew in high school,
and I'm using them to further my liberal agenda.

I feel killing a hundred-thousand civilians is wrong,
and I'm a bleeding-heart.

I think two people of the same sex should be allowed to express their love,
and I'm amoral.

I think creationism has no place in a public school science class,
and I'm a bigot who stifles free speech.

I think Christianity has the same faults inherant in all religions,
and I'm telling people how to live.

V

My discarded black hoodie
let me down
as much as my own faith in humanity.

VI

If I think I'm more intelligent,
Then I'm on my high horse.

If I want to be left alone,
I'm running from the fight.

When I do what I can,
It's never enough to satisfy the hunger.

When I ask just what the fuck I am supposed
To do and say and think and feel and believe
To finally still the
Unrelenting tide of criticism,
To simply be me,
Silence joins me to watch their words
Erode the padded brick walls locking my personalities from the world,
And with them,
Drops of me.