Born from the darkness, I awoke,

Seething from pain in my mother’s womb.

I clung to her chest, 

In a moment of rest, 

A chick in its nest.

A blink I took,

My milk—oh look,

It’s gone from a baby’s grip.

The next wink came and went, 

Outside of a wooden crib,

Where I no longer tripped,

Outside in the hot cement.

Another breath blown, 

I let out an aching groan,

When I tripped over a stone— 

Now a boo-boo on my bone. 

Next thing I knew, 

Clothes I outgrew, 

New faces I see,

New me to be.

Then, entrance exams,

Came knocking out loud.

And my doors seem to flood 

With rejections and damns.

For the first time I weeped— 

STOP! And fell to my knees,

Wailing for weeks.

My grasp, that time, escaped. 

It left me old and broke,

My heart obscured in smoke,

From buzz that had piled up

In my usual go-to pubs.

In the end, I failed my mom,

My dad, and that girl from prom.

The man you wanted me to be  

Has escaped—and is running free.