This The White Flag

This the white flag—
This the monument—
Those the eyes that stared me down,
Faithfully questioning my ambition,
My addiction to approval.

My way is as old as his.
My life pours over the forms
Of modern dumbed-down innovations
And private cultural norms.
And this day, full surrender happened,
And I realized that I, too, contain multitudes.

-jenn long