i do my thing
and you do your thing

i am not in this world to live up to your expectations
and you are not in this world to live up to mine

you are you
and i am i

and if by chance we find each other

it's beautiful

We are woven in
                     different cloths
that fit us all.

For we all wear the same
       skin individually.

I stand amongst a crowd of strangers
Each feeling their identity is in danger
Laughing loudly but only when you do too
So many things that I want to do
But only if you do them too
I try to recoup my eccentricity yet it stays unaided
Every gesture well calculated
Never questioned never debated
Lacking what once was mine and only mine
Today I stand jaded, lost to time
Comforting myself by calling it all a part of the design

I stand amongst a crowd of strangers
Each woman wanting to change her
Widening waist size engulfing my poise
And my mind losing control over those petty boys
I’m told to love myself and rejoice
OH!  What a marvel is this thing called me
Yet I think of me as a fruit of some poisonous tree
It’s like a flea stuck on me
Funny how my arch nemesis
Is me, and how my inhibition’s genesis
Was me, yet I couldn’t keep it off my premises


I stand amongst a crowd of strangers
I call them my friends and my neighbors
We stay together and laugh each day
But in between all the laughs our thoughts run astray
Going places and times I prefer not to say
We stay so entwined in our thoughts, so confined
that how unnatural it is to find
It’s not just me who loses her mind
And yet every day I meet, sit and greet
Hoping one day someone understands my need
My need for the same two hands, same two feet.

Those who make me smile
Wish they could stay for awhile
Through the storm of life
But the smiles fade
The truth is revealed
Standing alone
Left to pick up the pieces
Abandoned to fight for myself
A cycle
Repeating
More lies, more desertion
Unaccompanied during the real battle

This stagnant pond refuses to change
It won't even acknowledge the rain
Painting itself as full of lush life
Whilst ignoring the constant strife

"I am my own system" it cries
"I won't care when the river dries"
Forgetting, of course, it's own role
In making the water continually flow

In this age of inflated identity
It's lost the collective amenity
Standing alone amongst the crowd
Singular voices don't ring so loud

This stagnant pond refuses to accept
That the way it acts is incorrect
"It's not me it's them" it blames
Losing the help that it shames

One day this pond will dry up
Leaving little left in the muck
Whereas other ponds form a lake
Giving for the collective's sake