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To my most inner Geek:
Through all my painful years of schooling
It was in tenth grade when I learned my most influential lesson
From a gray-haired wizard of mathematics
Never allowing the use of “the man’s destruction of the mindâ€
Her most complex lesson was, “Be yourself, everyone else is takenâ€
I thought it to be a cliché at most,
But soon learned it would be harder than I thought
After all, who was I?
I started my mission of self definition by deciding who I wasn’t
I wasn’t the start athlete, marked by a horrible personality
And full-ride scholarships to bullying and insecurity
No one would pull my athleticism like strings from a puppet master
I wasn’t the class clown,
Although I did end up dressing up as a clown for my eleventh grade drama play
I scared my friend Cindy half to death, she’s terrified of clowns
I wasn’t the all too familiar “fly guy†of the school
Stuck to lockers in between classes like fly strips
I learned
I was the “Geekâ€
Armed for war with books of knowledge
My weapon of choice was my frontal lobe
Reasoning my way through the battlefield
Of awkward stares and jabs of pretentiousness
That resided in the eyes of honor’s student
In every honor’s class I ever stepped through
I was told I didn’t belong,
Because my skin wasn’t light enough
They said join your kind and lighten up
I, a fellow Geek, was cursed by mental prowess
And discriminated against for lack of ignorance
Excuse me if my ‘A’ doesn’t stand for absent minded
I struggle on in hopes that my inner Geek is one day reminded
Of everything I went through to evince that we belong
That I sat through every lecture and enjoyed it
That I must be of an altered species
The mutated human that actually prefers to read the textbook
Now let’s see you read in between the lines of my inner pages of Geek
And dare you judge me!
Supportive Always,
Paris
©Paris “Chi†Butler, “Letter to My Inner Geekâ€. 4/25/2013
