American Robot in Hell

 

I tell myself this new me will be a better me.

Someone who is more socially adept and able to smile with genuine glee.

Someone who won't be such a heavy burden on your fragile shoulders

Someone who won't be a cluster-fuck of feeling and able to keep my composure

For you, I will subject myself to be upgraded

And go under the knife to be less colorful, more faded

Than even the slutty dame at the rave on 37th street

Grinding all up on that hottie from third period.

For you, I am disposing of my old ways.

I stop asking those curious questions and solely listen and obey.

Mom, please stop looking at me with disappointment in your eyes.

I didn't realize I was too "nonstandard" and needed to be commercialized

As a pristine model of American adolescence,

But how can I do that? When I'm near you I'm only physically present.

That's why for you I changed my personality

In order to be more adept of reaching the expectations set by society.

With your firm hand you beated some sense into me

So I stopped trying to live within my own serene reality.

Mom, please be proud of your daughter.

Be proud that I conformed to your desire.

This isn't easy. In this unventilated disguise I'm starting to perspire.

Hurry, show how "normal" I am so the masses don't conspire

Against me, or against you, about my behavior.

Oh, I almost forgot to thank you my mother, my savior

For all the prep work for my transformation

From a unusual, nobody teen to someone with aspirations

Of being the stereotypical American southern belle.

But what you don't care to realize that this for me is 

Literal. And. Utter. Hell.

I'm done. I quit. I longer want to be perfect.

I don't have perfectly pristine hair

With perfectly painted nails

Or perfectly done makeup with lips that are perfectly pure bliss pink.

With my few remaining thoughts in my head I'm on the brink

Of converting back to my old self once again.

All of your hard work mother will go down the drain,

But I'm okay with that.

For this new me has a lack of something I can't live with:

My whimisical spirit;

Something so unique nothing can replace it.

For my old self was the better me

With endless amounts of witty words and limitless creativity.

No longer am I peering through the glass of captivity

 Nor ashamed of my unconventionality

Because now I decide who I choose to be,

Which is an abnormally inquisitive teen,

But I'm okay with that.

For I am no longer misrepresented.

It was never my intention mom for your discontentment.

However, now it is time for you to step aside

So I can have the real me shine

Instead of that metal contraption I was trapped in.

The truth, finally, no longer has to hide

From myself and from the world

And now it's my turn to be one of a kind!

 

This poem is about: 
Me
My family

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