The past, it may be over
but is it really changed?
I wish I could forget it
but my life's still rearranged.

I'm always told I'm 'different'.
There are things I just won't do.
These things that make me strange to them
I owe them all to you.

Because of how you were then
I swore I'd never be.
Somehow I lost myself in this
although I'm finally free.

I won't even look at alcohol.
Oh gosh, no way...no how!
My kids will never see me drunk.
Not later and not now!

You'll never hear a curse word
be uttered from my lips.
Although I may be thinking them
while my hands are on my hips!

I seem like such a nut case
to all who don't know why.
I don't waste time explaining...
I couldn't even try.

Mary Nagy

http://www.poemhunter.com/poem/being-different/