Calm Down
The Bus is a Metaphor

She told me that she wrote a poem about me

And because we were both in high school at the time, I mistook that as a compliment

I hadn’t realized yet, I hadn’t learned the lesson yet

That people like her; People like me; The like-minded people we were back then

We did not write poems about things that we loved; Things that we cherished; Things that we wanted to remain exactly as they were

The people and places that raised us accidentally, unintentionally instilled within us a great desire to drastically change the world

So much so that our view of poetry back then was that it must be a tool for fixing a broken world

And every poem had to be a socio-economic magnum opus that empowered the weak to speak truth to power

Otherwise, you’re just wasting everyone’s time

But if you place such a rigid view on your writing then eventually it infects your speech

Such that you no longer talk about anything or anyone unless that thing or that one needs to be better

Which was all the more tragic because we both turned to poetry in order break the rigid conformity forced on us

The compulsory education we shared required from us a great deal of twisting and contorting into suffocating molds

With her’s being even more restrictive than mine, though that subject matter could be a whole other poem unto itself

Actually that could probably be a whole series of poems unto itself

Actually that could probably be a whole book unto itself

Actually that could probbaly be a whole field of academic research unto itself

Actually that could probably be a four-wave social liberation movement unto itself

But I digress, we were, nonetheless, both of us, berated, bullied, and beaten into our respective molds

Every time I slipped out of mine, I took a deep breathe to smell the fresh air

But when I exhaled to speak, the fresh air was tainted by the burning hatred I buried under a repeatedly bitten tongue

And that fiery breath never actually licked at the feet of the people who were strangling me

I hadn’t realized yet, I hadn’t learned the lesson yet

That I was not enlightening the people around me

I was just setting alight the shelter that other trapped souls were desperate to share with me

So given the like-mindedness that drew us both to poetry in the first place

‘Twas indeed naive to think that her brief dalliance with freedom

Would see her speak soft and demure on a topic that brought her relief, comfort, or joy

She read a brief poem about me that abruptly ended with me getting hit by a bus

And then the bus backs up; And then the bus hits me again 

She told me that she wrote a poem about me and I was young and foolish enough to be flattered

I hadn’t realized yet; I hadn’t learned the lesson yet

About the true impact that I was having on the world

Or more importantly, the people who were trying to share their lives with mine

But for me to learn, for me to teach myself, did not require berating, bullying, or beating

It required of me looking inward, admitting, accessing, and applying my own empathy

As well as a modest investment in public transportation