Never in Competition With You

*****

Why would I compete with you?
You’re my ally through and through
Only an outmoded fear
Makes you imagine so, my dear

I know your academic life
Was filled with Prussic acid
Much cleverness there is in college
Replacing any search for knowledge

Their learned precincts jaded grow
Why, think you, I refused to go?
And have the bloom ta’en off this rose
Associating with mere those

Who cannot with each other play
In even such a friendly way
As we expect our toddlers of
Far away from enlightened love

Concerned less with what masters meant
Than with venal self betterment
May only gain the access of
By forwarding themselves above

All others who come in their path
Excellence abased to wrath,
Esoteric, in disguise
Of one who would make others wise

But seeks instead perpet’ually
Instead to make all presently
Perceive superiority
Where none there such in essence be

In essence, we are all worth as
Much as any other was
Or ever will be — this comes hard
To those contorted for reward

Comes not to any therearound
Who waxes act’ually profound,
But only he or she who may
Find something so abstruse to say

That none hath said it e’er before
And, as well and furthermore
It must be writ in such a hand
Be difficult to understand

Indeed, no message may impart
Whatsoever to the heart
I tell you plainly, I despise
This travesty we’re calling wise

Self educated I have been
If I have no one now between
This self and settled pow’rs that be
To recommend or speak for me

Die will I in obscurity
Actually happily
Rather than in surroundings live
Wherein are named “derivative”

These ancient universal truths
So baldly lacking in our youths
Giv’n in form, at my command,
Which such may hope to understand

O, wish to “educate my taste”?
I do not have that time to waste
And as for mental discipline
I hope no one even begin

To challenge unto it my right —
Or, together, we will write
Through just a day or just a night
See how much each produce delight

So, you see, I’m qualified
Our academia deride
Nor did I lifelong hesitate
Aggressively self educate

All of this goes just to show
All of it to let you know
That you can lose habit’ual fear
As long as it’s me hangin’ here

For everything I better be
At doing, everyone can see,
At very least, are one or two
Accomplished much better by you

Unlike others I don’t accrue
Any points I’ve scored from you
I have a very diff’rent mission
Antithetical to competition

*****
Among us, poets are not paid. The poet/editor of this website, being physically disabled, lives at a fraction of her nation’s poverty level. Become a patron of the fine arts at: https://www.gofundme.com/are-you-a-patron-of-the-arts