So, this started out as a regular post and turned into some not-bad prose poetry. I guess I'm restarting Poetry Wednesdays! ~AJ
I don't fit. Not really. Not at my job. Not in my life. I'm angled where I should be round, round where I should be smooth, and smooth where angles are meant to go. Not that I actually have much in the way of smoothness. I'm more lumps and spikes than anything.
I don't fit. I don't say this to garner sympathy. I say it with only the tiniest smidgen of self pity. I say it as a value-neutral statement. Something true, or true enough. Like saying I'm tall (I am). It just is. I just am.
I don't fit, and that is not to say that I don't want to fit. I do. I want to fit somewhere, with someone. But I don't. Not right now. Maybe not ever—though I hope to the gods that's not true. I just haven't found my place, my puzzle. My job. My person. Whatever. I haven't found it yet.
I don't fit. Sometimes I feel like I'm stuck, perpetually, just outside the group. Whatever that group may be: coworkers, classmates, family, friends. I'm the one who doesn't quite get it, get in. I'm the one who stoops to fit in the photograph. I shrink myself to fit in the frame, cutting away chunks of flesh and bone, and still I rattle the edges.
I don't fit. I don't know where I would fit. Or how. Or with whom. I can sand the rough edges, but I can't change the basic shape of me. Not without losing much of who I am. And I've given up too much already to give up that much more. There'll be nothing left.
I don't fit and I'm sick and tired of trying to force myself to fit. It's painful. It makes me doubt. It makes me unsure and unfun. It makes me tense and afraid. And I think it makes me stupid. I know it makes me awkward. Who wouldn't be awkward covered in open, oozing wounds, and missing some of the parts that make up the whole?
I don't fit. And, mostly, I find now that I don't care. I will heal and move on.
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| by Charles Hamm [CC BY 3.0], via Wikimedia Commons |
Odd Angles
I don't fit. Not really. Not at my job. Not in my life. I'm angled where I should be round, round where I should be smooth, and smooth where angles are meant to go. Not that I actually have much in the way of smoothness. I'm more lumps and spikes than anything.
I don't fit. I don't say this to garner sympathy. I say it with only the tiniest smidgen of self pity. I say it as a value-neutral statement. Something true, or true enough. Like saying I'm tall (I am). It just is. I just am.
I don't fit, and that is not to say that I don't want to fit. I do. I want to fit somewhere, with someone. But I don't. Not right now. Maybe not ever—though I hope to the gods that's not true. I just haven't found my place, my puzzle. My job. My person. Whatever. I haven't found it yet.
I don't fit. Sometimes I feel like I'm stuck, perpetually, just outside the group. Whatever that group may be: coworkers, classmates, family, friends. I'm the one who doesn't quite get it, get in. I'm the one who stoops to fit in the photograph. I shrink myself to fit in the frame, cutting away chunks of flesh and bone, and still I rattle the edges.
I don't fit. I don't know where I would fit. Or how. Or with whom. I can sand the rough edges, but I can't change the basic shape of me. Not without losing much of who I am. And I've given up too much already to give up that much more. There'll be nothing left.
I don't fit and I'm sick and tired of trying to force myself to fit. It's painful. It makes me doubt. It makes me unsure and unfun. It makes me tense and afraid. And I think it makes me stupid. I know it makes me awkward. Who wouldn't be awkward covered in open, oozing wounds, and missing some of the parts that make up the whole?
I don't fit. And, mostly, I find now that I don't care. I will heal and move on.
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