Or Not - Feb 8 2025

 

Or Not

Feb 8 2025

I am right-handed

as most people are.

5 feet 10 in height

which is average for a man.

Middle class

mild-mannered

and moderate in habit.

I wear pleated slacks

collared shirts

cargo shorts,

and as you well may have guessed

am prudent financially

drive 2nd hand.

Middle of the road, one might say.

Typical

unoriginal

unimaginative.

Sound suspicious?

Wondering what I’ve hidden

what secret inner life?

Because isn’t it the quiet type

you have to watch out for,

the repressed individual

liable to explode?

The straight-jacket of conformity

I’ve worn since God knows.

So I rebel.

Try writing left-handed

driving too fast

not cutting the grass.

Slack off at work

cheat on my taxes

dance until dawn.

And play bad music

at ungodly hours

loud enough to wake the dead;

bag-pipes and polka bands,

rap and hard rock.

Stop fretting

about what the neighbours will think.

Dress bohemian

and share conspiracies,

turn vegan

or eat only meat.

Anything

to be an individualist;

different and interesting,

hard to predict.

Or not.

Because change is hard.

Because expectations are set.

And because my temperament

is like ballast in the bottom of a ship,

rendering me untippable

on my slow and steady path.

A model citizen

a stable man

a bourgeois state of mind.

A man of substance and civility

who has a place for everything

takes care to be on time.

No trace of defiance.

No hidden inner life.