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Writer's pictureL. Roy Aiken

Clichés Exist for Reasons

Updated: Jul 11, 2021

“Only the strong survive,”

cackled the good ol’ boys

I grew up among

in South Carolina

damn them all

they weren’t wrong.

What I had trouble with

was said strength was

to be directed only

towards survival

One displayed one’s

Superiority and fitness for

mating by superior endurance

to the Big Miserable Thing

with no thought towards

liberation

if only in one’s mind

God help you

if they caught you

trying an escape like

reading, or God forbid, writin

when you better be workin’, boy

There ain’t no other way

and the sooner you figure that out

the better off you’re gonna be.

I spent my formative years

being told I was weak and

without common sense (now you got

Book smarts, so that’s something)

but—stop me if you’ve heard this—

with trumpets and fanfare

announcing King Irony riding in

with the cavalry to my vindication...

(wait for it)

...here I am

a happily married old writer

there they are

(the ones not long since dead)

bitter, disappointed old

beasts of burden

nyah-nyah

how do ya like them

apples you braying

old jackasses?

etc.

It’s an old story, and that

I feel no particular vindication

only sad for the waste of lives

prosecuting an old trope

is itself an old trope

Besides, it took me long enough

to come around. I could have made

far better choices, myself.

Every writer learns

to his horror or otherwise

that there are a finite

number of stories

to be told only so many ways.

You do the best you can.

It’s all a matter of style.


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