Learning To Hide Poem by RoseAnn V. Shawiak

Remembering playing as a child, the things I said and
those that were thought in depths of intellect.

Photographic sights being kept on interior screens,
watching videos through all these years as I've aged
into senior living somewhere along the road of life.

Enjoying all the pure innocence of childhood, happy
growing up the way I did with a curiosity and wonder
for everything in life.

Reaching always for answers in every aspect of my
little corner of the world, testing, asking questions,
always wanting to know every little thing no matter
what it was.

Putting together, puzzles way beyond my years,
according to the adults around me, and always being
told that I was too smart for my own good, as if that
was a bad thing to be.

Wondering why it was so, when I, myself, felt that
it was a good thing, because it made me feel intense
discovery and satisfaction within.

Quietly beginning to keep things inside, not
mentioning them anymore, turning to reading books
for the answers I wanted to find out.

As time progressed, finally coming to conclusions
on my own, taking abstractions from the universe
around me, and putting them together, coming up with
many different solutions than before.

Respecting parents, yet sensing that they didn't
understand what kind of child they really had,
striving to be better, finding answers to everything
in timely fashion throughout childhood.

Later going to school and being bored to death with
things I already knew, hoping to find a way to develop
into a person who could be free and independent, never listening to anyone except my parents.