What Others Think

Can I let go of what others think of me?

What would that be like?

Has there ever been a time when

I did not bounce off of other’s opinions?

So little confidence in myself

They must have been right

Even If I didn’t believe them?

I am but I am not

Yes and no, I don’t know

Is what I think and feel

What I think and feel?

When I was a boy, my parents said I was sensitive

Later, others said I had cloth ears

Didn’t know anything, innocent

Head in the clouds, always somewhere else

Drawing pictures; I dreamed but didn’t see

People will just walk all over you they all said:

Then someone did…

And…

           I blamed myself.

I am but I am not

Yes and no, I don’t know

Is what I think and feel

What I think and feel?

When I was adolescent I hated me;

My frontal lobe burned with injustices

Shrinking from the inevitable punches

In the classroom, the corridors, the playground

I didn’t fight back. They called me creep, weird,

Could they all see through me

To my pain, my shame?

I am but I am not

Yes and no, I don’t know

Is what I think and feel

What I think and feel?

Now I am here I have learned

What happened that I hid is not

My shame; sitting in my home

I can tell the younger me that

It wasn’t my fault but the abuser’s

No crime but the abuser’s

He saw not me, but a thing

To damage

I am myself; a Survivor

Hurt but strong

What folk think of me

Is up to them.

John Baker.