Who I Am Poem by Mason Word

Why do I feel as if the world around me is caving in
Why do I feel sometimes that I am my only friend
Why am I in such despair
Why have I, all of a sudden it seems, started to care

So much to do
So much to say
I just want to be me
I do not want to do as you say

I want to be my own person
I want to serve my own goals
I want not to bend to this world
I will not conform
I refuse
But yet there is too much at stake
Too much to lose

If I bend to this cruel world’s ways
What will it do
What will become of me
I am becoming more and more serious and stolid everyday
Although it may not seem so, I am slowly dwindling away

That last line
It touched me
As I hope it has touched you
For I believe I may have well tapped my greatest fear
To lose myself to this world, as I am doing more so each day
Until my true being might disappear

If I resist I will be struck down
If I change I might well have been already
To be locked down, imprisoned as I am now
In a seemingly endless emotional torture
Or to be chained and put away
By the ever-looming shackles of society

To conform would be the easy way
But nay, as though it may be true, it is not the way for me
My way is full of grief, self-pity, and despair
My way is the way of the great
The thinkers, the poets, and all those who have truly achieved
Anything, anything at all worth mentioning, all the world-changers took this path

It is the less-trodden ground
It is not very well kept
But yet the grass is greener at the end of the road
It leads to wide-open pastures and still waters
Where I may drink and soothe my soul

I am weary and I am wary
Of many dangers lurking abound
I have faced many troubled times before
And as for now, though I may falter, I will stand my ground