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Home » 1996 » #229 » Cultural Dissent » Poem: The things I see

The things I see
are not part
of the constructed
collective consciousness.
The things I see
are terrifying.
They haunt me in nightmares.
They fill me with anguish.
They make me cry
and want to scream
my desolation
with big despairing eyes --
like in that black and white
expressionist painting.
They make me long for a better world.

The things I see
others have been trained not to see.
They have been trained
to see other things instead.
And to turn against me.
So, they accuse me
of being a troublemaker
of being crazy
subversive
destructive
ungrateful
greedy
depraved and deviant.
They stifle my cries
so that I can behave.
And vainly
they try to change me.
But I keep refusing
and holding on to my vision
hoping I'll never be like them,
wishing for a miracle to happen
to make them see the things I see.
Afrodity Giannakis

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