Sizing Up 



Believing you have me bagged

Is really quite full of many snags

You cannot know how it is I feel

You've not been where I was peeled



So many have played with my emotions

I'm not used to your openness lotion

Perhaps I'll never be sure of my heart

As so many have toyed with it from start



If you think you know me the way you say

All I can tell you is you haven't been my way

You will never know what pain I've suffered

Had you - you would understand my stutter



There is so much more I've not told you

You cannot possibly know this hot stew

Which has simmered for a half-century

Some of it spent hanging from a tree



Which I grew into sitting on a tiny acorn

Planted into hard ground marked by scorn

Fertilized with dirt thrown over to blanket

And now my tears need a fresh new hanky



Don't write this man off so very quickly

Who made a mistake, and now is tickly

Time will allay the acute pain of this chatter

Hopefully before it makes me a mad hatter



Christopher W. Thomas

9pm Thurs. Nov. 20th, 1997