Confidence (draft)

You say my problem is that I don't have much
confidence, you tell me that I really need more
confidence, but we both know that you won't allow me
confidence, we both know it's the kind of thing that you
beat out of us, in the confines of the classroom,
on the concrete of the yard, when you punish us for standing out
or trying too hard, in the natter that you chatter over
cups of char, in the door you say is open but you never leave ajar,
in the millions of little ways you manage to exclude,
in your minuscule aggressions and the ways that you collude
to bring us down and leave us out because we don't exude
this confidence you say we have to have or else we're screwed.

But guess what? All this self-esteem you're selling? I don't need it,
because I've regularly walked in rooms not really believing
that I've got what it takes, and yet I've still succeeded,
and I didn't even fake the stuff you say it takes to make it:
you sat there in your armour while I'm shivering and naked
but I shimmer while you're dull, I'm free while you're in thrall
to the notion that you have to come on like a troll
showing no emotion but a token LOL
because the only way you think you know to stay in control
is to keep it need to know that you can sometimes be weak,
so to keep from being thought of as some kind of freak
you devote all your resources to behaving like a dick
and call it 'confidence', but we see through it: it's a trick.