Oed Loves Me Not | + Follow Poet |
Free verse | + Fav Poem | Comment | Email | Print |

Sorry, I'M a Stranger Around Here: Uh, On the Earth

Sorry, I don't know what the heck you're talking about. 
Sorry, I don't understand a word of whatever you may have been trying to say. 
Sorry, I don't know that man, or woman, or children, or anybody else around here. 
Sorry, I'm a stranger around here... 
uh, no, not only in this neighborhood, 
but everywhere on the earth. 

You asking me since when? 
Uh, let's see, for about ten, no, twenty years? 
Uh, no, not that either.... 
Since forever, I guess. 
I've always been feeling like a complete stranger on the earth ever since I was born, I guess. 

Asking me why? 
Because, uh, I don't know what I am. 
I have absolutely no idea what humans are. 
When I'm with people, even with my parents or siblings, 
even when they seem to like me and even love me, I, uh, I don't feel at all the friendship or love that they claim to have for me. 

Do I love them? 
Uh, I don't think so. 
Do I love my parents and siblings, you say? 
Uh, not any more. 
Yeah, I thought I loved my family and other people 
when I was a kid or until I was a teenager or something. 
But after that, I ceased to feel that way. 
Ever since I was twenty or so, 
I've never felt any love coming from others 
or any love coming from inside my own heart. 

I don't feel I'm real. 
I don't feel I'm human. 
I don't think I belong to people. 
I don't feel I'm a citizen of the world. 
I don't feel the people around me are humans. 
But I do feel as if I'm in a huge zoo together with apes and pigs. 
I feel as though I'd always been trying desperately to speak their pig and ape languages. 
Their languages have always been horribly difficult to master. 

Whenever I try to communicate with them, 
they've always complained to me, 
saying that I speak weird Japanese. 
They've said they don't understand my language well. 
They even get angry at me sometimes, 
saying that I'm deliberately saying things 
confusing to them, to make a fool of them. 

I can't speak their languages well enough. 
Nor can they understand my language well enough. 
There's always been a huge, vast gulf 
gaping wide between them and me, 
which has always terrified me all my life. 

I'm not human. 
If I do belong to any place or any world, 
I probably belong to the other end of the universe. 
Definitely not here.

Copyright © Oed Loves Me Not | Year Posted 2017

Please Login to post a comment

Leanne Lovejoy-Burton Date: 12/26/2017 5:39:00 PM Maybe you're not. Maybe you are merely a figment of your imagination. That being said, what you are walking in, if you are a figment of your imagination, is just a container for containment and your imagination, the real you, is a time bomb waiting to be lit. Somewhere there's a crack, the light will get in and light the fuse. KaBOOM. Login to Reply Oed Loves Me Not Date: 12/26/2017 6:33:00 PM Thank you very much, Leanne, for your continued encouragement.

Angelina Wu Date: 10/6/2017 1:19:00 AM I've read somewhere that, for every different person, a poem means something different. No matter what others may think about this poem, it has touched me, and that's my opinion of it. Login to Reply Oed Loves Me Not Date: 10/6/2017 1:54:00 AM Thank you very much for your encouraging words.