An Accepted Way Of Life Poem by Lawrence S. Pertillar

I can today admit it.
I had been trained to be tolerant,
Of environmental nonsense.
With it believed to be a blessing,
To accept in silence acts of ignorance.

And then something drastic and life changing happened!
I awakened one day to realize my own addiction,
To a clowning about life and having this inflicted.
With an unresisted doing of it to conform to limits.
As an accepted way of life meant and it to live.

And it was!
'Theirs'.
But not my life I valued with a purpose too serious.
Not my life I recognized had meaning I realized,
Was not lived for jokes or to be someone's fool.

I can today admit it.
I had been trained to be tolerant,
Of environmental nonsense.
With it believed to be a blessing,
To accept in silence acts of ignorance.

But not my life,
I had come to value with a purpose too serious.
Not my life,
I awakened to recognize had meaning I realized...
Had not been meant to live everyday to portray a fool.