why
am i so resistent
to being told what to do?

is the the literal years/
two whole decades
of being told education is what i “have to” do
and that it all “has to” be this way
only to find out
in my mid-to-late-twenties
that there are so many other ways,
and our education system is so flawed
not just with resources allocated unequally
but in the literal ways the textbooks read/
that everything is touched by humans
and nothing is objective
ever,
and sometimes it’s traditional
and sometimes it’s one person’s power grab
to create a hero
where there was only a genocidal maniac before,
and the myth of history being written by the winners
really puts a black-and-white/violence is supreme
kind of spin on it,
and the loss of momentum
i was always warned against
is simply
the burnout i feel
now

it’s not that i hate being told what to do
by a person or persons —
it’s the whole system
i refuse
to listen
to