Keep your normal (An Open Letter).

Dear Real World,

I’m not talking to the ones who self-gratifyingly

make statements like: “You look good… today.”

I’m talking to the ones who think

that simply because I look good every day

I must have something I am trying to prove.

I am complete, with myself –

all by my-self.

I am unique, but if you’d care to read

you’ll see that you are too.

I am outstanding,

not only because I allow myself to be

but also in the way that I speak my truth

without devaluing yours.

Your heritage and your standards

you must always remember that they’re yours and not mine.

I consider myself beautiful,

but that’s because I know the work I put in.

I consider myself complex,

because I never know which dot I’ll connect next.

I consider myself warrior of peace,

because my speech initiates breaks from silence.

I refuse, however,

and please hear me clearly when I say this:

I refuse to be normal.

Naturally, I am not made to be a wallflower.

Naturally, I do not grow to remain in the confines of your imagination.

Unnaturally, I will not flog myself on account of what I am not.

Naturally, I am abnormal…

That is to say, defined by intricacies of inaccurately spaced lines.

And if you’d care to stop and look at your reflections

gleaming off the pools of self pity

whose waters you busy with finger pointing and hearsay,

you’ll see that you’re abnormal too.

I’m happy to be outside of this house you call normal,

because it’s a palace with one door and someone’s long hidden the key.

So you can flutter about, cross pollinating innocent minds with

lascivious tufts of insecurities.

I’ll have none of that.

If you’re still reading, Real World,

I beg you to stop, lick your lips and say:

Life’s too sweet to surrender to cavities.

Life is too short to walk the long road past everyone else’s perfect veneers.

Smile at the day, and realise that we can change –

we command change.

It all starts when you irrevocably profess,

in the hushed tones of lovers at midnight,

to your heart from the escarpment of your imagination,

that you are abnormal

because normal is a palace with one door and someone’s long hidden the key.

The next time you think you are too this or too that,

confess your judgement, profess and repeat:

Keep your normal.

See?

Yours sincerely,

Naturally Abnormally Me. 

Fig, Olive Oil, & Sea Salt Challah (www.sarcasticcooking.com)

Of all the things in life I need, This I Knead.

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