Jade Poems: Conformity
Conformity
Conformity.
Adopting traditional values
Following a set path of beliefs along the norms of society
All for acceptance and respect
But what happens
when you don’t feel the same as them?
What happens
when you don’t want to dress the same as them?
When you don’t want to act the same as them?
When you don’t partake in similar interests to them?
When your identity doesn’t align with the binary
That essentially dictates who we all are?
Trying to escape conformity
Is like climbing Celeste Mountain
It’s a difficult but rewarding journey
And leading to liberation from rules
Imposed by those
Wanting to consolidate and exercise power
Over the common individual.
Conformity is the enemy of freedom
It’s what keeps us
From living freely
Living free of norms
Is what makes us powerful
Finding ourselves
Is what enlightens us.
Others talk down on those
Who break free of the shackles
That is, social normality
In other cases
They attack ruthelessly,
mocking,
jeering,
and worst of all…
Inact violence.
They think they can weaken
They think they can stop
They think they can break apart
The very individual
That seeks to be themself
In a world where
That is treated as a sin.
What they don’t know is
That empowers the oppressed
That makes them want to change
To be different from those
Who follow the path of normal
And dull.
That makes them want to be
Who they seeked to become
In the first place
Breaking the barriers of society
And what it holds sacred
One day, those of non-conformity
Will seize the moment
Towards a new day, a new era of promise
A new beginning where
They get to live not as conformed individuals
But as themselves, freed of the shackles
Of what conformity wants to consolidate.