I am not your negation,

But you desire mine.

My presence offends you in ways I cannot fathom,

though I certainly feel your anger, rejection and disgust.

I can do nothing to appease you,

To calm your fears.

Even when I apologize,

You continue to yell at me, berate me, call me names.

Honestly, I am secretly relieved,

That you never fail to surprise me,

Your beliefs always remain an enigma,

As foreign to me,

As I am to you.

A mindset that I am proud never to assimilate.

An entitlement I am proud to live without.

A life I am proud to have

Not built on anyone’s negation.

I am not yours to define.

I am not yours to deny.

I am not your negation.

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Text and images by M.P. Baecker

16 thoughts on “I Am Not Your Negation”

  2. Absolute knock out of the Park! I hoped to share on Twitter & follow you but don’t see your twitter handle . I don’t want to miss any more of your pieces !! Please let me know if you have Twitter! I’m sharing this on all my social media! Wow!!

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  3. I wish i could forward this to the office mean girl! I’m sorry to hear about your experience that inspired this poem, but fortunately, I think good people STILL outnumber the bad. As they say, only unhappy people (if not legally insane or on drugs) do this because truly happy people don’t go around trying to hurt others. A Mirror of Hate. 🙂

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  4. This is an interesting and thoughtful piece of writing. I have read your comment above and now know the source of inspiration for the poem. There is no explaining this sort of behavior. Years ago when my children were small we lived in the city and I was travelling with them on the streetcar. A woman blocked us trying to get off. She was cursing at my children. I’m afraid I let her have it verbally and she backed away and we got off the streetcar. I put her outburst down to insanity, drugs or alcohol. But I did not want her to get near my kids and so I yelled back at her. These sort of incidents are so disturbing. It happened to me decades ago and I still remember it clearly.

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    • We have had similar experiences! I also didn’t mention that my daughter was with me at the time too! Moments like that really bring out the protective instinct in us mothers and rightly so 😅.
      When I was younger I used to be hurt by people like this and constantly wonder what I did to incite them, or what was wrong with me. Now that I have had more life experience, I feel strong enough to handle it without absorbing it in. Luckily it doesn’t happen every day, so it still always catches me by surprise, but I am mostly relieved that I am never this miserable to take things out on someone I don’t know or take advantage of someone.
      I hope our children can learn from us, so that when these kinds of things happen to them, they will feel strong too.

      It’s always a pleasure to read your comments!

      Liked by 1 person

    • Thank you! The relationship between humans and Mother Nature is fraught with pain and upheaval. So that’s a good guess and makes me think in new creative ways I could go with that.

      The inspiration for this poem came from an incident in a bus when an angry lady, for whatever reason, started yelling at me and blocking the exit when I tried to leave. I apologized for whatever it was that bothered her, though I had done nothing at all, but she simply hated me, she kept screaming at me if I posed a real threat to her or endangered her life in some way. I don’t know what it was, maybe she was crazy, on drugs, xenophobic, or a racist, I don’t know. I felt embarrassed at the time, but mostly confused, since this kind of unprovoked rage is completely alien to me. I don’t hate people I don’t know. I think all good people try to abide by that simple rule.

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