Common Core

Growing up in this day in age makes me feel like I have aged well past 23 / Being taught how to fill in a bubble completely, how to never write outside the designated area, how to break open a test packet with a Number 2 pencil, how to put my pencil down when I am told, to sit down and shut up and to cover up when I am told //

Growing up in this day in age makes me think I should have aged like fine wine but instead it is like I am a coke-a-cola that has been sitting out for 23 years and I have gone flat //

In all my schooling, in all that I have been taught, I have never once been taught how to do taxes, how to change a tire, how to love myself / I did however learn how to bottle up my anger, how to ignore the knot in my stomach, how to control my breathing so adults did not think I was being aggressive or bitchy, how to change my face from raging red to a more appropriate shade of "tired” //

These are the things that school never tested me on / I am sure it is only a matter of time before they turn my rage into a scantron / I will carefully fill in every bubble so completely with bits of my anger dark enough they become black holes / The teachers ensure us that this is so the scantron can read our answers properly; that the only color the machine sees is black / Unlike the officers in our school who say they 'see no color at all' //

I save the rest of my rage for when I walk home that night ensuring I can text my friends that I got home safe //

Einstein once said that "if you judge a fish on its ability to climb a tree then it will spend its whole life believing it is stupid"

I happen to be exceptionally good at climbing trees unlike the fish, but I am willing to put money on it that the fish knows how to love itself better than I do //

Climbing trees is my one healthy coping skill / No school ever taught me that, I got to learn from mother nature / Climbing is my outlet for the rage I hold within / The rage that was lit in second grade when I was assigned a pink cubby because I had XX chromosomes while all the XY chromosomes got blue ones / The rage that society has been pouring gasoline on ever since //

While climbing makes a good chimney for my fire inside, not knowing how to take care of myself leads me to do things I enjoy recklessly with a passion / Every tree I climb makes me feel like I have conquered Everest, each summit extinguishing my rage enough to make it manageable and giving me a euphoria leaving me wanting to find my next fix, my next climb, my next accomplishment that no one will ever grade me on //

And thank God for that because when I am climbing any sense of safety dissolves into the soil that is holding the roots of the trees I conquer / All the bruises that cover my body after a climb make me mistake myself for the night sky / Holding so many galaxies, planets, stars and black holes that lie within / The bruises make me mistake myself for someone who I can love / Giving my body new color, brilliant purples, shades of blue, tints of yellow and green, I finally feel one with nature / I finally feel like more than just a mutt of nationalities //

I like to believe in parallel universes / Gives me hope that somewhere else people are taught to love themselves before they are taught how to multiply and divide / How to be there for a sick family member, feed themselves and be honest about their feelings before they are made to memorize the pledge of allegiance / Parallel universes give me some semblance of peace //

A sort of freedom knowing that in another life my body might only be covered in freckles/painting constellations on my somewhat white, somewhat colored, but-not-colored-enough-that-people-still-think-that-I-am-joking-when-I-tell-them-that-my-father-is-a-man-of-color, skin //

I am sorry, did I make you uncomfortable?

I like to call myself fancy things like a non-binary-pansexual-disabled-biracial-immigrant-alcoholic / Or sometimes, just a minority / Depending on the political weather of the day //

Growing up in this day in age makes me feel like my age is just another label I must be, add it to the list, check the box, fill in the bubble / Give me a minute to shrink myself down to make you more comfortable //

Growing up in this day in age makes me full of rage when I am told I must make you comfortable /

I will not //

I want to be more than just a "got home safe" text, focus on more than a sharp Number 2 pencil and extra credit that I lose sleep over //

Growing up in this day in age is starting to make me believe that my age can be an asset / I want to be so much more than labels / So much more than just the box checked "other" on every government form /

I am more //

Because at 23 in this day in age I can at least make a beginning /

My flames cannot be held back by climbing trees forever and it only takes one flame to start a forest fire / Change is possible //

And growing up in this day in age/ at the ripe age of 23/ I want to learn how to love myself/ even if that means teaching myself ///