I've learned many things
In the eighteen years of my life,
Many of them being rather disconcerting.

Perhaps to you,
But not so much to me.

I have ceased to feel,
To care. I'm so close,
So close to giving up the fight.

What's the point,
When the world
Is constantly waging a war against you.

De Sade taught me
That bad things
Often happen to good people.
Shakespeare tells me
Of tragedies,
And Orwell,
He tells me
That knowledge is dangerous.

But where is God
In all of this?
This deity that
you speak so fondly of,
Where is he amongst all
Of the chaos that is
So mercilessly thrust upon us?

I expected him
To save me a long time ago,
To give me refuge from the
Disaster that has become my life,
Yet, he never came.
Another lesson, I suppose.
Expectations will only lead to disappointment.

At one point in time,
All I had wanted was your
Acceptance,
All I yearned for really.
I put efforts into my education,
My athleticism
But it was all for naught,
As time after time,
I was constantly
Forced to be someone
I was not.

Until
One day,
I realized something.
You would never accept me
For the person that I am,
The person I had become,
Nor the person I want to be.
For what you wanted
Was a compassionate, beautiful, mellifluous
And religious child, who would never question nor disobey you, revere you, answer to your every whim.

A child that would have a career in medicine
Or the sciences, as they seem to be the only
Acceptable work industries in our culture.

Alas, I am not that child,
Nor will I ever be.

Ironically, it was
A result of the
Knowledge I acquired
In order to curry your favor.
Not that you would ever know.

I consider myself
To be acerbic and homely,
A non-believer of a high degree,
One that will never lay prostrate
At anyone's feet.
Will always ask questions, and
Will always put the individual
Over the so - called
"Common good."

To think is to be,
According to Descartes, and
I'm just beginning to be, it seems.
I am artistic by nature, and
The world fascinates me,
But I have no such desire to be
Involved immensely in
Medicine nor science.

I am truly sorry,
Not for who and what I am,
But I am what seems to be
The physical manifestation of
Your disappointment,
A failed marriage without much fidelity,
A liability, an atheist, a creative.

In a sense, to you I have become The Stranger.

Je suis L'étrangere.

When I am to return to my birthplace,
I wonder,
What will people think of me?

I am not as they remember me,
I shan't be as I once was,
So jovial, devout and loving,
For now I am the opposite.
I daresay that
They won't accept me for
Who I've become,
Who I want to be.

"To thine own self be true,"
Shakespeare once said,
Well here I am.