https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sUttxCLcwP8

Use the above song as inspiration for any form of creative expression (including but not limited too short stories, poems, lyrics, artwork, photography, covers, music/dance videos etc.)

The parents looked at me and said

‘You have to stand on your own to feet

Be real in all you want.’

Such sage and simple advice

I carried through life

Over the curves and ups and downs

The days when fantasy seemed more real

Than the day-to-day hum drum of work and more work.

School was never a place for me,

My teachers were uninspiring

Classmates wanted to be fashionable

Saw mediocrity as their life’s goal.

Education I found for myself

No thanks to the system

Which frowned on individuality.

It tried to mould me a clone of their lacklustre selves.

Standing on my own two feet,

Came at a cost

Persecution, ridicule, scapegoat

The butt of so many jokes when

All I wanted was to be me.

Lovers came and went,

Took a part of me

Left me scarred

Financially at the mercy of others.

I learned the hard way that people

Despite what they said can’t be trusted

I was better on my own,

Wandering the world, being me.

I was the oddity in a world of indifference

I lurched from one crisis to another

Always learning, being me.

I reached out one day

‘I hope you don’t mind me intruding’,

Discovered a real person

Not affected by society expectations

Not like other women

Happy being who she is

Never seeing me as anything more than me.

I rest now in her arms

I stand on my own two feet

I am a person, a man of integrity

Aware of my own self

I am the real me.

Written for: https://mindlovemiserysmenagerie.wordpress.com/2015/08/28/music-friday-prompt-6-stand-up-by-hindi-zahra/