OUR TICKS

Picture Courtesy: www.computertrainingpattaya.com


There I stood,
Before an entire class,
I was almost fifteen back then,
All nerves,
Yet I stared the class down
As though I was about to charge at them,
Like a bull,
Looking all confident,
Only if they had known how nervous I was,
In my head,
All I kept saying was,
Oh boy, oh boy.
It got me through that uncomfortable day
In Agricultural science class,
It helped me tick.


One day,
I had to speak before an audience,
For some reason,
All I had prepared seem not to make sense to me,
I was so nervous I could feel my legs quiver,
When I mounted the stage,
I performed a trick,
All I did was fix my gaze at the top of the heads
Of all who sat in the audience,
In doing so I saw them as small,
I towered over them on that stage,
From that point onwards,
I was on a roll,
When I finally made eye contact with them,
I was on fire,
If I had jumped off a cliff that very moment,
I would have taken flight,
In making everyone else seem small,
I ticked,
Never froze.


In truth,
We all have our ticks,
Some bite on their fingernails,
Other hold a pen even when there’s no need for it,
Some pull on their noses as though nursing a cold,
Our ticks are a part of us,
Over time they change,
We fine-tune them unconsciously,
They serve us well,
Some may seem odder than others,
Others better disguised than others
But make no mistake about it,
We all have our ticks,
So unless you are a time bomb,
Please tick,
Feel comfortable in your own shoes,
Be yourself,
Let the world embrace you with all your odd ticks,
Should you lose your ticks,
You’d become nothing more than a mass of meat
Roaming the face of the earth on two feet,
So please,
Just tick,
It makes you special and pretty unique.