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Letter From the Other Side

We should all be the same. It is some kind of conspiracy. We do not know about it Until Kindergarten. We should all walk the same way down the halls. We should all like dolls – if we are girls. We should all like guns – if we are boys, But since this is school if you play guns, you are in trouble. We should all have an inside voice. We should all try to wear our hair the same way. We should all like the opposite sex, not the same sex. But wait! What if I don’t have an inside voice? What if I don’t want to wear hair at all? What if I shaved my hair off because my cousin has cancer? What if I don’t know what sex is? What if I am called “gay” and I don’t know what it means? What if “gay” is said in an angry mean bullying way? What if I think something is wrong with me now And I am only five? What if I feel ashamed that I am not exactly the same? What if I decide to hide my real self for thirty or forty years? What if I cannot BE the same? What if I am creative and intelligent and hilariously funny? What if it takes me years and years to be my complete realized self? What would you say if I said Kindergarten was my torture place?

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Ann Peck

Date: 3/26/2021 9:25:00 AM

I'd say junior high was! Words so true. I didn't realize prejudice began so early these days. How sad our world has become. Nice poem!

Caren Krutsinger
Date: 3/27/2021 4:47:00 PM

It is sad for us, and so true!

Sotto Poet

Date: 3/26/2021 6:14:00 AM

In case you're not both imaginative and intelligent and amusing, here's an alternative hypothetical: What if I were both intelligent and hilarious? I'll stay that way for years, maybe even a lifetime, to find out who I really am. wonderful poem Caren, best wishes

Caren Krutsinger
Date: 3/27/2021 4:48:00 PM

Thank you Lasaad; I was on a "little roll" here.

Virginia Gelok

Date: 3/25/2021 7:16:00 PM

Of all the times to read this ! I was just trying to come to terms with a situation on the same lines...and god knows you just helped me figure things out...guess i had to see it in black and white. Thanks for a wonderfully insightful piece.

Caren Krutsinger
Date: 3/27/2021 4:48:00 PM

I throw it down onto a page, hoping it meets the right person, Virginia, so I am very grateful for your words.

Kim Rodrigues

Date: 3/25/2021 11:35:00 AM

In K I didn’t talk...so shy. I played with cardboard blocks, painted, remember Graham crackers and milk, but not so much people. I wanted my home, my family. Pre-K in the private school that I worked in was so much better. I thought why couldn’t school have been like this!

Caren Krutsinger
Date: 3/25/2021 11:58:00 AM

I remember people and I LOVED finding so many new children my age. My sister and I were identical and petite. Our classmates carried us around like dolls until we began to demand it.

L Milton Hankins

Date: 3/25/2021 9:12:00 AM

Life is really f---g complicated, isn't it? I read your poem thinking, "Wow, how does anyone make their way through life and maintain...if they are different in some simple, trivial way? My heart just goes out to little kids who are confused by their own differences and thoughts.

Caren Krutsinger
Date: 3/25/2021 11:59:00 AM

It is interesting to me that children think it is fine, but adults have to lay the hammer down, trying to pound them into identicals.