Get A Move On! Poem by Robert Burgan

This is how you'll get to know me.

When I learned to break free I felt like Andy Dufresne crawling through a drain pipe, I came out clean on the other side. When I took my first breath of genuinely fresh air I inhaled it like gossip, like promises and secrets, I let all that relief pour out of me and I had nothing to hide. For so many years I hid behind misinformation, melancholy and gut-wrenching nervousness. I used to pick at my fingernails until my cuticles would bleed until I learned to wander…
I bloomed from a garden of clay and rubble, I was growth surrounded by debris, I became debris blowing through an alleyway, I was like you but never truly me. I became transition; I was the ticking turn-pike clock rounding 12! Passing 1! But when I got to 2, I stopped dead in my tracks. Maybe I was moving too fast, maybe I wasn't ready to move on quite yet, nevertheless, when I heard The Pop in '02 and again in 2010 my eardrums busted open like a floor tom with a worn out skin…

I go back in time sometimes; I think about the encouragement my mom has been giving me for all these years, since I was a confused kid admitting things that weren't real, feeling things that were so complex, they were impossible to put a label on. I exist, people! I remember looking my mom dead in the eye and telling her I truly believed I was Bi-Sexual, 'Mom meet my maker, his name is fear.' Her facial expression met my maker named fear and introduced itself as 'what are you afraid of kid? You feel' she accepted. She accepted everything I did, she pumped life into my so-called dead end, she told me to live my dreams, you hear that everybody? You hear it? Dreams live! When I ignored the label I became the product, the authentic version, no generic. No inherited-birth-defect-scared-parent-therapy-session-God-defying-embarassement-to ALL men, I cry every now and again and I fear sickness.

The point of this whole thing is encouragement, if it wasn't for encouragement I'd still be some scared kid, half hidden deep in the pits of myself unaware that labels are just a way to categorize yourself, you exist, just like me. I'd still believe my talent is holding me back from a brighter future, I'd still doubt magic but I am magic, I'll surprise you sometime to prove to you that it exists. I am survival, I've faced fear and I'm still here, existing. Hang no label around your neck don't let anybody dangle halos over your head, become exempt, you're not weird you're a more unique version of your friends. I've seen trends, I've witnessed evil, I've been the devil in all red flesh and I've sinned, do you believe that? I heard discouragement for the last time; I absorbed it, I swallowed it, I digested it and for a while I reflected it until I became the sun. So to all those kids out there and to all the people who think their legs are broken and they can't walk in peace, just remember being free is the most important key to unlock the door to happiness: so get a move on!