Why Wish To Be Someone Else? Poem by Professor Dr. Stanley Collymore

By Stanley Collymore

What do I care about love and why logically should I?
For why would I want to willingly subvert my most
intimate thoughts and emotions to the personal
scrutiny or whim of someone else? I’m an
individual, and a thinking one, for God’s
sake! Not some human android
inescapably programmed into
unthinkingly reacting in ways
completely contrary to my
best interests or else forced to
behave in the prescribed manner
that others who I either don’t know,
will in all probability never meet;
whose opinions I don’t share and
consequently mean nothing to
me arrogantly determine are
appropriate life strategies
that unquestioningly I
should adopt?

For to allow this pervasive brainwashing to subvert and
even consciously take over the entire running of my life
would not only be contrary to the individuality I’ve
assiduously cultivated and fostered throughout it
but would also, I feel, unequivocally negate
everything that is human in me. So please
let me be for I’m not you nor do I
aspire to being anyone else but
me; and all I ask is to be left
alone to make my own
choices in life and,
you’ve guessed it,
to likewise be
unmistakably
me!

© Stanley V. Collymore
26 September 2013.