Help Me Not Be Normal

Help me not be normal.
Help me when I am in formidable first grade, 
counting my fingers under my desk because math is hard
and there's too much talk from inside out and every last word 
barges into my brain the way you did my bedroom 
when you caught me sucking my middle and ring fingers 
and slapped me in my sleep and ever since I have had 
to have at least a sheet on even in the heat because you never 
know when someone's hand will meet your back,
not in congratulations but in how dare you do that
at your advancing age and ruin those perfect teeth?

Help me not be normal
when I am in middle school and cannot find my class again,
though I have been there three times already and 
should know the way by now but somehow still get muddled
among lockers I cannot use because there's never enough time 
to mess with a lock, pick up all the books I need, and run 
to a room I could have sworn was there, but maybe I'm 
on the wrong level again and I didn't learn until high school 
that the first number is the floor, the second and third the room 
numbers, everything is arranged in blocks, and if you keep walking 
long enough, you'll come 'round to the same place again, even when 
you're forty-five still having nightmares about being late and lost. 

Help me not be normal
when I am in in high school anatomy and cannot dissect the frog
without wanting to throw up and I accidentally stab the stomach 
with a scalpel, spilling out grainy black innards, formaldehyde,
laughing with the lab partner I am trying to make friends with
because I am a transfer student and shy and really would like 
someone else to talk to so I ask if she'd like to go shopping
because I want to find something in common with her 
but it never happens so what are you going to do, that's life.

Help me not be normal
when I am in eleventh grade and the hippie AP teacher with 
her beautiful beads and dashikis asks a question I can only meet 
in silence because I never could grasp Shakespeare without a translator 
and truth be told, I didn't even read the homework because 
foreign language is a mystery to me with all that remembering 
and talking and I can barely speak in English clearly so I did the same 
as the boy two rows over, lowered my eyes, shaking my head no
until she finally skipped me and thank God the next student
who spoke was smarter and could explain Juliet's behavior.

Help me not be normal 
when I am a young woman in a room made of paper 
and booklets and number two pencils and all the questions 
are multiple choice but my answer is hardly ever A, B, C, or D
and there is no E for "all of the above" but I am forced to choose
so I go with my gut and guess knowing my future depends 
on someone else's definition of right and wrong and there are 
no essays where I have space to explain.

Help me not be normal
when I am fifty-four and static enters conversation, the only
break between rival corporate gangs whose knives and chains 
are spoken words and acronyms I need a dictionary for but I cannot 
look them up fast enough because I cannot look away and I am sweating
at my cluttered desk because I know I am expected to speak
so I blur my background and eventually turn my camera off.

Help me not be normal
when I am over sixty still fighting to fit in so I can earn a paycheck 
because you know, I never was very good with numbers and 
writing poetry couldn't pay the bills and social security won't cover
it all so I will work where I can until I am disabled, until I die too early 
like my mother who definitely was never normal, but boy, 
did she know how to love and meet people where they're at.

Help me not be normal.
Help me wrap my nervous mind and random words around 
a world not built for me or by me but still I am demanded 
to find a piece of peace among the few remaining trees outside 
my office window, strain my ears to hear mere sparrow calls, look up 
to remind myself that sometime in a next life, I will be a Canadian 
goose, flying with my family in that perfect V where each 
backs up the next and no one has to navigate an endless sky alone.

Help me not be normal.
Help me not have to fake it ‘til I make it because faking it never 
has done anyone any good and I am barely passing anyway so 
I ask you just help me not be normal. Let me be myself. 
 
-Katherine Mercurio Gotthardt, Copyright February 2024, All Rights Reserved