Bad Boy

. I was raised to be a good boy wanting to do the right thing be the cool clean hero convinced that would bring me joy so finding out how the world really worked came as something of a shock my holier-than-thou persona being regarded as a jerk feeling like one on the inside I became angry began getting in fights started doing drugs and late late nights enjoying the worlds ways instead of putting them to rights I found something not just the credibility of no longer being whiter than white I met me my Mr. Hyde the naughty boy who’d been locked up inside life was more complicated with him around but less difficult than when I’d kept him underground so now I sometimes let him have his say but try to see that he doesn’t get his way all the time he’s a friend of mine and together we can be one bad boy and I hope maybe one good man .

Comments

• By me, right now

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• 
  Kiddy
  March 8, 2009
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  Hey W...
  How are you? I liked this poem. The proportion of a mob self and an individual self within, varies from person to person. The ending lines say it all. Interesting one. It is true that we are tragically divided against ourselves.
  Thanks for sharing
  Love and regards
  Kiddy

  
• dave ochs
  March 8, 2009
  
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  hey John

  i liked the concept of coming to terms with your inner bad boy, it was a good bit of self-anylsis mixed with self taught philosophy.
  
  i don't know if the rhyme was good in this case. not as tight as your usual, maybe it was confining what you where trying to say.
  
  the second to last stanza, the last line, i think needs a line break after way, which rhymes with say, then you could use your usual enjambment.
  dave
• 
  maxswift
  March 8, 2009
  
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  wow. seriously. this is kidn of my life story. this was really good. that last stanza. perfect. really nice job.

  
• 
  WhiteSaille
  March 8, 2009
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  I like it... and boy do I agree that "finding out how the world really worked / came as something of a shock."
  
  I think it's an intriguing idea: reclaiming and integrating the Mr. Hyde in yourself rather than wholesale rejecting him like the "cool clean hero" might be apt to do, and by doing so, maybe making "one good man" out of yourself.

  
• • 
    Windhover
    March 9, 2009
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    Thank You

    Hi WS and thanks for taking the time here and for getting the point. Integration is indeed the issue. I reckon we have to stop telling our kids they can only be good OR bad. I reckon each of us could be a Nazi or a saint - and neither is a particularly great option. Thanks for taking the time here. >W<