Turn Aside Poem by RoseAnn V. Shawiak

This was inspired, because with a photographic mind at a very young age, people would promise me things or tell me things that I would remember word for word. However, they wouldn't remember what they told me, so I learned not to trust, thinking everyone was always lying to me. Felt betrayed, worthless, because no one would come through and do the things they told me they would. Felt I had done something wrong, or was bad because they wouldn't take me to the park or somewhere else like they said they would. Having a photographic mind is both a blessing and a curse, when little it was mostly a curse. Finally getting to an age where I could understand what was going on helped some, but the damage had already been done, I was an introvert, extremely shy, socially backwards, didn't want to be around people and became a loner in a solitary world. Never talked to people, wouldn't get up in front of the class - would take an F rather than do that. Learning to play the clarinet in grade school, it became my voice instrumentally, later learning how to play all the instruments. Then oil painting became another medium to picture what I felt and wanted to say. When eleven, wrote a novel, wrote short succinct stories, and finally poetry, giving me a voice to let out a lifetime of thoughts, ideas, knowledge, wisdom, feelings, opinions and emotions. This poem is a culmination of it all.