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