"you drank their acid and concealed it." - meaning people bullied you, and all you did was keep it bottled up inside. You never shared it with anyone and it was like acid eating away at something, all the people were slowly weakening you. "If you faced the death of bombs and bullets you did not do it with a banner, you did it with only a hat to cover your heart." - I think these lines means that if you had problems or troubles, you faced them alone. Once you overcame them you did not brag about it or gloat, you protected yourself from the humility. "You did not fondle the weakness inside of you though it was there." - meaning that even though you had a great deal of weakness and fear it was kept inside of you where no one could know or find out how much you had. "If you have endured a great despair, then you did it alone." - After you have went through a hard time, alone and with no support, you have got stronger every time you have done overcome something.

IF

I agree with Kiplings message in the poem that you need to be the best person that you can be, so people will look up to you. He gave us tips on how to be a mature and responsible adult. He explained what would be the best thing to do in difficult situations. The most meaningful statement to me would be, " If you can bear to hear the truth you've spoken twisted by knaves to make a trap for fools. " , because it's saying not to care what people think, let them think what they want you are the one that knows the truth and they can think what they want. People just do it to irritate you, if you ignore it, they will most likely stop. Kiplings advice is very useful today because it is what you can go by to become and mature and respectable adult.

My Left Foot

Being able to write changed Christy's life because he could communicate with people through writing. It showed people that he can think even when everbody else thought that he couldn't. It changed his life because now when people talk to him they know that he can understand them. No matter how hard something is, you just have to believe that you can do it and it will happen.