An Author's Tale

Here I am, the only leftie in the room...
unusual already in the way
I write and create what spills from my head-

Here I am, the one who sits and writes and is
opposite of everyone else I see with pen to paper.
What does this mean, if anything?
Do we look for meaning where there is none?
Or perhaps the side used for writing what I think
Has everything to do with who I am...

When I was young, I was told
I was very wrong to be a leftie. My mother
Bristled and said with ice in her voice,

"Let her be what she will be."

And so it was that I was left alone to
Be a leftie, to be different in a world where
To be the same is strangely revered.
But with that earliest lesson I was taught-

Not only is it Good to be different, it is,
In fact, the desired state of being.

So many of us strive all our lives to
Conform, bend to society's mode of doing
And thinking and being, when conforming
Is the least of what we should do for ourselves.

"The Masses" do not know my heart, or yours.
"The Masses" cannot tell me who I am.

I am a woman prepared to write my own life story
My own way.

I want to be the author of my own tale, the one who
Decides the fate of her protagonist. It is time for me
To create the same sort of care for
My primary character-

Me.