when i was in school they regarded me as a retard. not a clinical retard, we didn't use clinical language back then, in school, let alone the playground. it was a loose term, used to denote difference, one who dared to or couldn't help be different. a term out of fashion now, but which i hear in the minds of people all the time, who diminish spirit, who demean difference, who damn with conformity.
 

 and i became a freak and swallowed drugs and retarded my own damn self. for a spell, that is, that felt eternal, until it rightly, justly passed. until now.