Long-winded Busybody

“You talk too much”, people like to say.

Don’t they know life is much better that way?

I know that I am loud, I get it from my mother.

But, I am not ashamed, because I can yap like no other.

I will talk to anything that walks

or anything that slithers, barks, or bocs.

I will talk to myself or that man down the street.

I will talk to the moon in hopes that one day we meet.

I will yip and yap until my voice box runs dry.

I will chit and chat until I fall down and die.

I will talk so much that I might just start to rap.

I will talk so much, the sun might just turn black.

I will keep talking, no matter how much you try and stop me,

because, at the end of the day, it’s what makes me most happy.

There was a time when I didn’t talk much at all.

People would use me to make themselves feel tall.

I felt worthless; my soul all bruised and battered.

I felt as though nothing I had to say ever mattered.

It took me a while, but I’ve found my voice deep inside.

I had to yank it out and let the self-pity subside.

So if you’ve gotten anything out of my little story,

just know that I don’t think your yapping will ever get boring.

Let the no-good pessimists stay on their side,

And never let anyone make you feel like the best parts of you have to hide.

My mommy says I’m special

We are all born of sameness.

All swaddled in pink or blue blankets, given the same shots and handed back to the same sweaty and breathless women who brought us here.

All taken back to the same houses with the same cat or dog.

From this point forward, we strive for difference.

For some, it takes a long while to figure out just what kind of difference, but I knew right away.

So, I gathered my tools and strength and carved a staircase out of my mountain of life.

When the journey grew tiresome, I would lift my chin up high, see the sun rays dancing on the peaks, and remember what this was all for:

Difference.

When I reached the top of the mountain, I felt like the tallest person in the world.

No one else could ever say they had done what I had done. I was truly accomplished, bathing in the sun that I had worked so hard to claim as my own.

I was genuinely different, and that was special.

After I had soaked up all of this bliss, I took a look around me.

To my surprise, there was another mountain to my right and another to my left.

They were all very different-looking mountains with very different-looking people atop them.

Nonetheless, all the same height.

The rows of mountains spanned further than my eyes could reach.

The people atop these mountains all looked just as surprised to see me as I was to see them.

We exchanged stories of hardship and triumph. 

We separated ourselves with politics, class, and race.

Trauma is a competition where the person with the most pity receives the biggest prize.

Some people have very steep mountains and are only given a piece of floss to climb with.

Others are decked out in full climbing gear even though their mountains are more like large hills.

Even so, we all end up in the exact same place, staring at the same great sun.