What is the theme of "Identity" by Julio Noboa Polanco?

The
key theme of this poem by Julio Noboa Polanco is individuality and the freedom that comes with
retaining one's own personal identity. Polanco uses an extendedto imagine himself as a weed,
which, unlike the "flowers," may be ugly but will never find itself
"harnessed" to a pot in which it must remain contained.

The weed,
Polanco goes on to say, is "unseen" and may be "shunned," but at least is
able to feel exposed to the sky and the breezes. The weed has a soul and is able to spread its
"seed" into places the flowers could never reach.

Flowersthose who
allow themselves to be circumscribed by the rules of a constraining societymay be pleasant
smelling, beautiful, and appreciated, but they grow in "clusters." There is nothing to
distinguish them from one another.

By contrast, to be a weed may mean being
viewed as "ugly" and foul smelling, but at least it means that one is an individual
and retains individual freedoms.

It can feel dangerous at times to defy
convention and break outside of the "pots" within which the other people live. There
is a certain "madness" in being a rebel. However, although a weed will not be praised
as flowers are, it also will not be "plucked," either.

Polanco
describes humans as "greedy," suggesting that they praise these well-behaved flowers
in part only because they ultimately want to be able to harvest them. People are taught to be
and behave in a certain way so that they can be commodified. Weeds are considered ugly because
they cannot be purposed in this manner; but at the same time, the weed itself knows that it is
free.