Magnetic Poetry 1/29/09

underachiever

I can do a great many things
but I can only do a few things great
I never finished my first year of college
I haven't played in organized sports

I believe I could have been great
at something, anything
I could have been a great piano player
I have big hands

I could have been a great doctor
I have the smarts and compassion
I could have been a stuntman
according to my childhood dreams

I could have been so many things

Yet I'm not

I had all the time in the world
I had opportunities
but I thought of other things
I never realized

how lonely mediocrity can be
how depressing the future can look
how overwhelming it all seems now
when I don't have as much time

I suppose I could still be a doctor
but I'd die before paying the student loans
I could be a concert pianist
if I took lessons every hour of every day

I could paint the next masterpiece
or write the next great poem...

those are still attainable

and I believe in my heart
that I could have been great
but I'll settle for what I am
what I have become

through all the years
the scrapes and the bumps
the jobs and fights
the births and the deaths

I have nothing to be ashamed of
because if we all look inside
I'm sure we'd all find
an underachiever

broken windows

feel the cold
of the world around you
feel the life
that is slowly slipping by

turn your eyes down
and see what lies beneath
turn away now
and leave the hatred behind

there is never a true mirror
that will show what we want to see
there are only little windows
between you and me

little broken windows

time-less

The new year brings promise
the new year brings pain
the new year has solace
the new year has rain

we should never forget
the concept of time
is a human invention
it doesn't exist

for anything except us
it limits us, it ties us down
it shackles our lives until
we are slaves of it

time
year
day
minute
second

all concepts
we immediately recognize
but fight against
futile

Time does not wash slates clean
fading memories do
Time does not forgive
people do

time doesn't, and isn't
it's just
a figment
of each of us


spend it wisely
for it is a piece of you