Today I want to have some fun, so perhaps I’ll go on a run.
“What, are you crazy?” My mother said,
“Get your **** upstairs! Go to bed!”

“****!” Said I or, perhaps I’m remembering wrong,
I likely didn’t curse at that age, but I’ll move on.
So I climbed the stairs, as I often did,
Disappointed to a fault, though I wouldn’t pretend.

The next day I approached and declared: “Tomorrow, I feel, I will want to go eat.
But not the same places….Somewhere different, somewhere unique!”
“Oh no, I forgot, you must forgive,” She said. “I did not remember, I forgot to call again!”

And so again I return to my room,
“Why!?” I ask myself, “why am I trapped in this costume?
Parading as someone, but in truth silenced, kept behind glass.
My true self guarded, completely bypassed.

Yesterday I begged, “could I go to my friend's party?”
“Forget it, definitely not, I don’t know those folks and you know it!
Go into the kitchen and study, this family needs you to support it.”

“So, where did you then see yourself in ten years, how about twenty?”
The doctor asked me to clarify…but I sat in silence, reminiscing over something,
That might have been more significant than I knew.
After all, weren’t these sessions designed to give what has happened a more skeptical review?

“I think I saw myself happy,” I said, “but I don’t know what that means.”
How could suppression of culture, constant rejection prove to be a success?
Would I have confidence in myself, could I seek out a dream?

“Well, let’s try and think of it a different way,” he said,
“Let’s take a deep breath, close your eyes, let’s see what we see.
Have you been able to go out and find yourself?”
I replied, “Doctor, I’m not sure who that’d be.”