I am drowning in my own clichés.

Everything I’ve thought has been thought before.
Everything I’ve done has been done before.
Not only has this all already occurred.
It’s been performed better
With more genius.

Everyone’s a writer of some sort.
Everyone’s an artist of some kind,
For everyone has an artistic mind.
You’re not even smart if you get an “A,”
The teacher was just unfair with the grade.

You can’t try to be different,
Because even that’s a cliché.
Everyone wants to be unique,
But can’t,
For that’s what everyone tries to think.

I am no better than anyone else,
Nor am I any worse.
I am just me, but there’s no distinction,
For I am everyone else, of course.

Everything I hate in others
Is mirrored in me.
I don’t like myself
Because I don’t like what I see:

Pomposity, Selfishness, and Irrationality .


© 2001 by Valerie Leichtman

Back to Journal

Back to "Literary" Attempts