Life is what happens to you while you’re making other plans,
I simply happened to life while it was making other plans,
It just wasn’t expecting me.

“If life hands you lemons, make lemonade”
Couldn’t just one simply buy Kool-Aids?

“Tarek is a social child and participates with zest to class activities,
Must be less sensitive towards problems” – Reads my earliest school card
evaluation.

I was a social child,
Yet I resented all of these buggers with me in class,
Except for my cousin perhaps,
Who kept popping into my life inside the classroom and out.

People inside the classroom have no life outside of it,
They vanish, they disappear.

They just don’t come around for visits with their parents to your house,
Like my cousin did.

A birthday at the kindergarten,
Tony’s birthday with his silly show-offy parents,
A stupid white cake with almonds sprinkled on top on the cream,
A large piece I can never finish,
Nor be able to finish the “Mirinda” bottle I was handed as well.

At the age of four I was to be “less sensitive to problems”,
Less sensitive to peeing in my undies,
Less sensitive to not crossing the street alone,
Less sensitive to not to sleeping too late,
Less sensitive to the fear of snipers,
Less sensitive to cakes with almonds sprinkled on top of the cream,
Less sensitive to being reprimanded for drawing dying soldiers in battle
fields and men with uneven thighs,
Less sensitive for not being happy with the Christmas present,
Less sensitive to dancing incorrectly to the rhythm of a dreadful song with
the end-of-year performance for parents.

But here I am jumping the gun, the dancing on the dreadful song came much
later. Something like one full whole year later. But the point is that I had
already too many problems by the age of four and they wanted to be “less
sensitive” but were satisfied with my socializing.

Oh, and I napped well, I think,
Napping was such an exciting activity,
I got to lay with your hand under your face on the cold desk,
While trying to contain the urge to want to go pee.

I drew men wore short sleeves and it was always summer,
Their shoes were big,
Their hats were optional but uneven thighs weren’t.

And full of “zest” I was while drawing,
I would press the pencil so severely on the paper sometimes it would crack.

And a social child I was,
I am now less sensitive,
Less sensitive than anyone should be,
And I do it with “zest”.

I hope they are happy with me now.