Normal?

What is normal?
This question has popped up a lot lately.

Is it pink hair, tattoos, body piercings, and dark clothes?
Is it oversized hoodies, baggy designer jeans, Timbs, and over-the-top bravado and swagger?

Is it the $900,000 condo in a metropolitan area?
Or a cookie cutter single family home in the suburbs?

Is it blue collar or white-collar work?
Or how about a get-rich-quick plan?

Is it traditional? Or is it conventional?
Is it revelatory? Or is it revolutionary?

Is it the big house with seven bedrooms, six full baths, a picket fence, Lexus GS, two kids, and an American Bulldog?
Or is it an unashamed, refusal of the American dream?

Is it conservative or liberal?
Is it republican or democrat?
Is it capitalist, socialist, or communist?
Or is it apolitical?

Is it mainstream or underground?
Is it male, female, or trans?
Is it straight, gay, bi-, multi-, or asexual?
Is it married, common law, or a civil union?
Is it Christian, Hindu, Muslim, Buddhist, or atheist?
And is race, class, or culture a factor?

Wait a minute …
Does normal even know what normal is anymore?
Let’s face it:
We’ve come a long way…. Or have we? (Okay; that’s another poem for another day!)
We’ve evolved into so many different things
With a variety of tastes, likes, dislikes, desires, wants, needs, and dreams.
But the more things change, the more things stay the same
If you look a little bit closer, we tend to be more alike than we are unalike.
So instead of forcing people into what we think is right,
Or how we think people should live
(Translation: what we’re comfortable with),
Just let people be.

And remember—just because it was right for you don’t mean that it’s right for everyone else.

© 2012 BuddahDesmond

Claiming to Know: A Poem

I never thought I’d see the day when people would use the Lord’s
     words in vain.
The Good Book has been used to support every ill within society.
There’s no exception to this, even now.
With people using The Word against each other
Not knowing while in defense they’re spewing more words of hate.
This contradiction is the cause for my current disdain.

I’m left wondering what happened to the love?
What happened to respect?
What happened to decency?
The current regime is using its religion to support a political agenda.
They think they’re sounding righteous when speaking for the people,
When in actuality they’re catching feelings and taking it personal;
     it’s sacrilegious and totally obscene.

I’m left asking what happened to the separation between church and state?
I was under the impression that religion had no place in politics.
I thought there was freedom to choose.
But I’ll be damned if somebody’s going to tell me how I’m supposed to live,
     What I’m supposed to think,
     And how I’m supposed to feel.
I have an individual relationship with God.
We’re cool;
And nobody can tell me otherwise.
No preachers, no priests, no nuns, no family, friends or strangers at that.

No human being can ever take precedence over the Supreme Being
     because of infallibility
We’re not perfect.
We’re flawed.
So what makes you think that the real message didn’t get lost in translation
     or in our current interpretation?

Everybody’s claiming to know the deal.
Everybody’s claiming to know The Word.
Everybody thinks they got The Good News.
Everybody’s claiming to know,
But claims aren’t totally legit.
Besides, no one’s really going to know anything…
     until Judgment Day.

© 2005 BuddahDesmond