When I was little
they said I was lazy
so later I overcompensated
by working like crazy

I couldn’t sit still or stay long
we should just focus on one thing, they like to teach
so I mistook length for strength
forgetting that to leave, requires courage that can breach

I started writing a bunch
and they told me, write like Hemingway yours are too long
so I cut myself short
and forsook the depths of my form

You’re too idealistic, people constantly say to me
is it a fault to hold ideals in this merciless world
to believe we’re capable of intangibles like hope and love
or perhaps a stubborn capacity worthy of having

Was I just a sum of people’s perceptions
the bases of their expectations
could I make up my own story
and decipher my own meaning

I wish we would look at nature
where diversity is obviously essential
not only there can be mountains or trees
there’s an interconnected story to all beings

Why do we ask of people to be the same
when we are makers of our own narrative
there cannot be a carbon copy
because each of us are a million stories

Some of us grow deep roots
the others keep moving to seek new fruits
like the different edges of a puzzle piece
we are terrible at knowing we make up the same team

So these strings of words I dare write
neither and yet they belong to a poem or prose
for once it is clear to me
rules are just a made up show