Pariah
His classmates found him bookish and his siblings found him odd.
There were no other similar peas within his pod.
Nobody understood him—not his parents, not his teacher.
He found no ally in his doctor nor his preacher.
Oftentimes the acts for which they should have been astonished
were the ones for which he had only been admonished.
They flunked him out of chemistry for blowing up the table
by concocting an explosive that was something less than stable.
They called him just a “ne’er do well.” It seemed he wasn’t able
to do what other kids could do and so he earned the label
of klutz and geek and doofus. He could do nothing right.
He couldn’t chug a beer down. He couldn’t win a fight.
He never ever dressed right. He was fond of oddball hats.
Other people shunned him. His best friends were his cats.
Even as an adult, bad luck didn’t abate.
He remained a pariah. He couldn’t get a date.
He failed at conversation and he was a lousy dancer.
His single social skill was that he found a cure for cancer!
The WordPress prompt today was astonish.
lifelessons - a blog by Judy Dykstra-Brown 
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Well done. Wasn’t prepared for the end. But, I sometimes wonder what the world misses when we isolate those that cannot or will not conform to what we think of as normal. They might just be what’s normal, unencumberted by what matters to others.
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Well said.
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no other similar peas within his pod —my favorite line in a great poem.
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Thanks, Rugby…
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Wow. He sounds interesting.
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I love Forgottenman…cool guy, cool poem!!
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How do you like his crown?
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Fits him..King of the wild frontier!
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Sounds like Asperger’s Syndrome – an asocial genius. I had kids like that in my school.
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