Has your authentic self been so starved, become so unrecognizable, that you’re not even sure of how it would look ~ and actually afraid of how it might act ~ if you ever let it out?…
*****
Recorded Reading (1:34):
*****
Already Won
When you give your opinion
In a public place
Do you swifly edit,
Some of it replace
With statements that you hope
Will bring you popularity?
Do you glance o’er your shoulder
To see who list’ning be?
When you find something funny
And you get the urge to laugh,
Do you smother the merriment
And cut that laugh in half
For fear somebody might imagine
You’re laughing at them
On some destructive, denigrating
And malicious whim?
When you dress in the morning,
Do you put aside
Everything which brings you
Happy comfort, joy and pride
In favor of whatever
Is “acceptable”
To those who cut your paycheck,
Your puppet strings to pull?
When asked about your preference
On everything from sun
To shade, to personally joyful
Recreative fun
Do you consider first of all
What they might want to hear
What answer, made, will make you
Hippest in their eyes appear?
Then build your future prison cage
Around yourself you have begun ~
Don’t bother with complaining then,
Right now your soul’s already won
*****
This poet/editor is physically disabled, and lives at a fraction of her nation’s poverty level.
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