Small, oblivious, disgusting.
I wasn’t even a person before.
Thank God I have a brain that learns,
even if it does do so at the speed of a very clever turtle.
I walk slowly, but I get there,
and when there are no shortcuts, why,
I tear them into existence!
And when people look at me with scorn in their eyes,
I pray to the God in me:

“I am, I am, I am.”

And there! I paint God my own color, and worship no one but my own!
My own, my self! The “I”.

Small, oblivious, disgusting.
I could not even pray before I became.

Thank God, thank God, thank God I learn.

—*The Poet’s speech in The Child in The Dark, (1956), L