Banned Books

You are going to die one day
and it’s going to hurt everyone you love
the same way it will hurt
every time you get dumped.
Denial, anger, bargaining, depression,
acceptance. The last one is the most important.
You’ll have to deny and accept a lot in life.

Your government doesn’t give a shit about you.
Your civil rights are only protected as long as you can protect them.
Violence is sometimes the answer.
Sometimes drugs are the answer too.
Everything you think is bad
is good for someone else.
There are hundreds of other cultures
which are neither more right or more wrong than your own.
There are some people who will die for their country
and some people who will risk dying for their country
because it’s the only way they can get a college education.

You are lucky to be who you are.
Luck has everything to do with it.
Life is one percent perspiration
and ninety-nine percent adaptation.

The most important things you learn you’ll never learn in school.
Public education only teaches you how to lay back and take it.
It will take years before you learn how to stand on your own two feet
without it. You might never learn.
You might die depending on others.
That’s okay. Needing other people is natural.

This is the most important thing:
If you die believing what you believe now
you have accomplished nothing.

10/08/2009

Author's Note: Any feedback appreciated. Also, they really need to add "spoken word" under the poetry form options.

Posted on 10/08/2009
Copyright © 2010 Stephanie Lane Sutton