Don’t lie,
When you go out into the world and see someone,
Whether you’re aware of it or
Not,
You define in your head what that person is.
Oh sure, you may refine it,
But that first impression,
That first idea
Lingers forever.
Many people are heavily
Bothered
By this,
And do everything they can to give the first impression
That they
Want
To be
Known by,
Wearing certain clothes,
Eating certain foods,
Talking certain ways,
Etcetera dot dot dot
I confess, I was one of those people
Too
Once.
But then I began to see
Disconcerting
Things.
No one seemed to
Agree,
People didn’t even agree with themselves.
No matter what I was called, invariably I was called the opposite by someone else.
Some saw my grades and called me a nerd,
Some saw my athletics and called me a jock,
Some saw my beat-up practical dirty clothes and lack of makeup and called me a tomboy,
Some saw my collection of seashells and unicorns and my tendency to knit pink things and called me girly,
Some saw my crystal hanging from my window and the dried flowers in my room and called me a hippy,
Some saw my strict adherence to rules and tendency to overreact and called me square (pardon the retro phrase)
Some saw my aspirations to play football and my tough-as-nails attitude and called me a lesbian,
Some saw my collection of Jane Austen novels and chick flicks and called me a hopeless romantic.
Some called me ugly for not trying to make myself pretty,
Some called me sincere for not trying to hide myself.
Some called me fat, some called me curvy
Some called me strong, some called me rigid
Can no one make up their minds?
If this labeling system is so accurate, why must we come up with so many
Different
Names
For the
Same thing,
Even one person will give another
Countless
Labels.
My name is my label.
It is my selling point.
I am no more ugly than I am a hippy than I am a nerd than I am curvy than I am a sincere romantic.
I am no one, or nothing, but myself. That is all.
I am an Atra, that that is what I am, and maybe this way you’ll take the time to know me,
So that then you’ll know what an Atra
Is,
Not what she’s
Like.