I was in Language Arts flipping through a textbook when I found this poem. The words struck me with great familiarity. From the first sentence, I knew what the message was.If looking good, and being popular, means being unable to express yourself freely, than I choose to be an ugly weed.Here is the poem:Let them be as flowers,always watered, fed, guarded, admired,but harnessed to a pot of dirt.I'd rather be a tall, ugly weed,clinging on cliffs, like an eaglewind-wavering above high, jagged rocks.To have broken through the surface of stone,to live, to feel exposed to the madnessof the vast, eternal sky.To be swayed by the breezes of an ancient sea,carrying my soul, my seed,beyond the mountains of time or into the abyss of the bizarre.I'd rather be unseen, and ifthen shunned by everyone,than to be a pleasant-smelling flower,growing in clusters in the fertile valley,where they're praised, handled, and pluckedby greedy, human hands.I'd rather smell of musty, green stenchthan of sweet, fragrant lilac.If I could stand alone, strong and free,I'd rather be a tall, ugly weed.