Higher Learning

I am actually telling the truth in this poem. I went direct to science fiction from comic books in second or third grade. I was able to read and comprehend very early and in fact was in trouble in school for being so far ahead. They would often doubt I did my own work. I have had to find ways to fit in my whole life. I am not always good at it. In eighth grade it got serious and I had to deep study the fit in problem, what I was going to do and not do and how I was going to shackle my tendencies to shine without destroying my chances too. I desperately needed to not be noticed and my life was complicated by this process of being a self shackled high B student with my kind of brain.

I ended up calling in sick alot in my own life, learning to use a hot light bulb to generate a fever. This did two tasks, keeping me out of the way of those bastards at school, and also giving me more time for my real education from the authors of science fiction. Science fiction was my baby sitter and teacher, so much so that I would steal the latest stuff since I didn't have money. This was real work and I was good at it. I never got caught. My folks were too busy with complicated lives to check on why I had so many books.

Occasionally some project or class in high school grabbed me hard enough that I couldn't let go. Then I would get the high A I was capable of if I worked without fear of reprisal. I would be banged up by teachers as well as students in those times, like the history teacher who didn't think my college graduate school practicum level term paper on the Battle of Chancellorsville was my own work. Sigh. I was trained up very well in mediocrity. Most everyone hates a smart ass.

That was long ago, but the issues are still with me of course. Just about the moment I think I am in the clear someone like those guys in high school will jump ugly and prove to me once again that I am not free on this planet. I quit reading science fiction for the most part decades ago.

Higher Learning

I love pretending
I'm someone else somewhere else
believing I'm here.
That might feel like zen
but I get it from sci-fi
like everything
else I learned back then,
all those worm holes and light years
ago as my dad's
boy.

October 14, 2010 12:49 PM