I am: not poetry.

I am a perfect example—quintessential

Textbook sample

Cookie-cutter

Traditional

Playing it safe

Following the rules

Forgetting to take risks

Doing exactly what I am told

Remaining in my comfort zone.

 

A contradiction.

Ordinary.

Un-special.

Unimportant.

My vitality is negligent to functioning society.

Why am I

always worrying about my carbon footprint,

when an impression must be made

to force existence to remain prudent?

 

Irrelevant

relevance, and seeking

safety—physically and financially

Attempting to keep apart of the economy—socially

Societal means don’t mean a thing to your individuality.

 

Existential anxieties.

 

A trophy daughter—Show me off. I am Mary Wollstonecraft,

drawing the distinction between appearance and reality.

Mental disorders are [not] exclusive to the unhappy—

There was this one satanic teacher who told me

I am worth nothing more than a B—therefore,

being “okay” is all I can be, maybe?

 

Basically:

Favorite student,

Loving daughter,

Dearest friend—Are you

fucking kidding?

What am I?

Dead?

 

All things are not what they seem:

People lie, and just tell you their dreams.

So why is there so much uncertainty ahead of me?

Although there shouldn’t be, considering I have done precisely

everything that I was told to be.

 

I am not writing an epitaph,

I am writing about “me”.

Even though there is still a gaping distinction between

Who I am and

who I want to be.

 

I am not my past,

I am not my future.

I want to make history, but I have a hard time

getting out of bed.

Instead, thoughts run circles in my head,

because who knows if my spirit

will live on after my body

is six-feet-under,

or overhead.

 

Therefore, I AM—I have not decided.

I am undefined.

I am tired,

and do not feel like trying!

I am not a clock.

I am a ticking time bomb.

 

I cannot be determined by a single word in the dictionary because I mean

more than these few letters on the screen,

that scream, “I am me!” And I believe,

I have so much more to be, so to limit

what “I am”

to a single phrase,

distinctly distorts my entirety.

 

Is that the point?

I am no longer carefully choosing what would be “best” for me.

I am far from perfect; I am a deviant going against social normality. I’ve learned that

happiness does not lie in fulfilling your parent’s dreams.

Sagan said, “We are all

stardust” that means I am

composed of millions of insignificant particles of various elements.

Simply: lumped together, bundles of potential energy.

 

I am not well read.

You may not understand.

 

I—along with the other higher educated of my generation—am

not going to keep up in the global economy

if these pressing loans

keep building up in front of me.

I am confused

about whether or not I should

dust off my own dreams, or keep

within the means of the socially-constructed, acceptable boundaries.

 

Is this a result of a panopticonic trip,

or merely a Freudian slip?

Either way I feel as though my axis is

far too tilted.

So why would I impractically determine my future?

Based on a broad-topic major,

and then, when I decide that

that’s not what I want to be,

I’ll have an emotional collapse

because I can no longer define me.

I’ll just pretend that this is what should make me happy…

Even though in 5 years, there will only be that

1% who can earn those respected means.

So is this a matter of fight or flight?

For I will either float or sink? I am

extremely unsure.

And for that I admit,

I am not poetry.