Often, when young, I was told 'know your place'
by the people who owned the physical space
I was forced to exist in.
As their property I went where they wanted me.
What I misunderstood in the past, and see now,
is how my instructors were talking not about the ground I took up,
but about my lack of social class, my zero status.
As a child I had no value, therefore no place around them.
Even though they were my, yes my, parents.
I was their adjunct, and as an adjunct
I was to be talked at, without being heard.
At the time I thought that I was being addressed,
albeit incoherently, and therefore I had value.
I was blind to how I was unesteemed.
Now I can count that lack of sight as a blessing,
as a life my past felt like a very hard very long falling down.
Had I seen and known in full how I was actively devalued
sooner than I did, it would have hurt much, much, more.
Things are better now. If I am to be the object of derision
I know it is better to honestly deride myself for my limits,
before my tormentors begin, and to be firmer with myself
than my tormentors could ever know how to be with me.
That is the power of Self Knowledge in action.
It stops me passively absorbing other peoples cheap anger .
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