On The Outside Looking In Poem by Elsie Rodriguez

Do you know what it takes to “just be yourself”?
What does that even mean?
Nothing your say or do ever pleases people and yet
that is what you foolishly strive for every day.
Watching others have the time of their lives and always knowing
just the right thing to say or do.
It’s like they are on a television screen and you are watching them
play out their lives before you.
Sometimes you even watch yours play out the same way.
Do you know what it feels like to be misunderstood?
For people to assume you couldn’t care less,
when the reality is you care too much.
To always feel alone even in a crowd,
when each judgmental look, stare, whisper, gesture,
cuts through your heart like a knife.
And when eventually you let your guard down to let your
emotions show, others think you are weak, a joke,
an easy target for their misanthropic amusement.
The so-called adults instructing their children to
mock you, ignore you, disrespect you.
They think because you don’t hang around all the time
or act exactly the same as they do,
that you don’t care about them or they you are better than them.
But the opposite is actually true.
Always on the outside looking in,
Never feeling like you fit in.