Tongues Enclosed Within Cheeks

How am I qualified to live my life?
That's an interesting question...
Coming from the likes of someone like you.
Someone assigned to watch what I do.
Getting paid a salary to monitor me too.
Then to come uninvited into my comfort zone...
Looking for ways to have me condoned,
In my own home.
To ask how I am qualified to live my life?

I guess as much as you are...qualified.
If you can leave here with undiminished pride.
And with those same indignities remembered.
Those same indignities you do not at all try to hide.

I was taught to observe others with tolerance.
But I have learned to teach,
How to keep tongues enclosed within cheeks.
And how one's teeth should be whitened to make clear,
What deliberate lips wish for someone like you to kiss.
And to remember it as an undenying qualification,
People like you not expecting that is kept in preparation!

'I appreciate that.
You are not like the others.
You express an intelligence.
And...
Your diction?
So crisp and understandable.
I am impressed AND amazed.'

poem by Lawrence S. Pertillar
Submitted by Poetry Lover
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