Who Am I?
I wonder if I’ll ever know,
Who I’m meant to be.
They say some things will come and go,
They weren’t talking about me.
No, I won’t be here forever;
Not once was that my plan.
Although I do endeavor
To tell where it all began.
Let’s take it back to our first few years
To when our parents’ word was law,
Back to when our minds, through ears,
Could see in life no flaw.
We were told we could be what we wished,
No dreams were out of reach.
A singer who sang, a fisherman that fished,
A teacher who loved to teach!
Getting older we began to see,
Not everything they said was true;
Some of the things we wanted to be
Were beyond reach..We had not a clue.
As sad as it may seem,
That was not where it ended.
Was it part of their scheme?
From that point on, our lives were upended.
No longer could we do no wrong,
Our hopes, our ideas, now called into question.
Society had come on so strong,
They took away our right to expression.
We should have known,
They fed us lies the whole time
We control our lives. Us, alone.
If only we’d trusted ourselves in our prime.
Literature has tried to save us.
It tried so very hard.
It had been there from the beginning, no fuss
or complaints were made, it voluntarily stood guard.
It was there when we needed it,
When society turned us down.
Or whenever we gave a fit,
Whenever we wore a frown.
It knew from the beginning
That our morals are all we have to go on.
It beckoned to us, grinning.
Our names it called thereon.
Literature helped us realize
Who we are as a whole.
Our minds it helped to civilize.
In us, it found a soul.
It made sure that we knew
How important it was for
Us to know ourselves, through and through.
Literature knew what was in store.
For the better we know ourselves,
The easier life will be.
Often, it just sits on shelves,
All-knowing, waiting just to see.
The more we read,
The better we’ll see
The kind of people we need,
The kind of people we’ll be.
Becoming self-aware does not happen in a day,
But if we ever get there,
“How grand this is!” we’ll say;
Such confidence we’ll wear!
Everything I’ve learned today
Can be found page after page.
With that, I am perfectly okay;
Thanks to literature, my mind is not a cage.
AP Literature 