who understand me but me by jimmy santiago baca

This poem is the epitome of self acceptance and self beauty. Jimmy Baca in each line expresses the fact that despite the flaws to which he may have and the imperfections that are deemed ugly by society he is still beautiful to himself. No matter what obstacles and roadblocks that are thrown his way he accepts himself beyond what others think. Their ugly is his beauty. It is by seeing this within himself that he finds a greater understanding and deeper love for everything that is him. It is like saying he is his own greatest contradiction because a lot of what he feels others would never get thus the line "who understands me when I say this is beautiful, who understand me when I say I have found other freedoms", being free of trying to be what society or everyone else deems as "perfect" is a freedom unfound. So he takes his stubborn nature, childish antics, failures, fears etc and doesn't dwell in the negative of it all but accepts it and above all values it. Some people are at times so afraid to go outside the norm and become something more than what they are told to be that they miss out on everything else that they could possibly become. At times looking outside the box, coloring outside the lines, taking the road most untraveled is the hardest yet most rewarding path of them all. Jimmy Baca says that I am me and I could give two craps less what you may think, but regardless of what obstacles you throw at me not only will i live with them but I will thrive upon it.