Dangerous Potential
you’ll never amount to anything
you have so much potential
you better buckle down
work harder
you can do better
you can’t be that stupid
that was my past
I try not to live there too long
most days I don’t
but like that scar on my knee
from when I fell
that memory will always be there
the fall was more embarrassing
than painful
lots of bleeding
while the grit was washed out
the sting of antiseptic
the sting
of how could you be so careless
why don’t you watch where you’re going
teachers that told me
I’d never amount to anything
if I didn’t buckle down
try harder
stop wasting my potential
echoed my parents
a culture
that never did tell me
why amounting to anything
was so important
when I felt as a queer boy
I was already worthless anyway
they didn’t know how queer I was
I was just different
and that had to be coaxed out of me
that damage was done
there are moments
days
when I find myself thinking
I am useless
stupid
not worth the air I breathe
I should just get out of the way
of entitled people
who are moving forward
making a difference
I never did live up to my full potential
I never figured out what that was
other than to survive that era
when chemical castration
shock treatment
were considered the natural effective
courses to take
if one was caught
with their pants down
fulling some unnatural potential
I’ll never amount to much
more than this
and if it isn’t good enough
you have the potential to
get over it
Some days I have look at what I’ve accomplished to realize that I’ve accomplished something. If I’m not doing my nanowrimo speed, of 1500 to 2000 words a day, I feel lazy – not living up to my potential. I’m the only one who is measuring that potential. The lazy comes from those high-school/cultural messages of what success really is.
Getting an A, for remembering data, is good, getting a C+, because the data doesn’t get through the thicket of fear, is lazy. I tried my best to memorize all those trig functions, even had them written on sheets of paper hung on my bedroom walls, forced myself to read them repeatedly. I can still see those sheets of paper but not what was written on them 🙂 I squeaked through, I think. The bigger the mark rewarded the more of one’s potential one is living up to.
Fulfilled potential meant cash rewarding future. Opting out meant poverty or that one was a commie. I remember the back-to-the-land hippy days of anti-consumerism: tie-dyed couples selling over-priced candles, made of all natural goat’s fat, at a farmer’s markets is totally anti-consumerism 🙂 But that’s another story.
I still get caught up in this messaging to buckle down so that I can amount to something. If had I really buckled down I’d have that GG award by now, right? So that something is apparently only defined by someone else. When I define it I am being self-indulgent, lazy & ultimately in the way. One of the reasons I stopped going to poetry shows, doing open stages, is that so many were performing to knock on doors, to get grants, to promote creative writing workshops. I was there to share poetry for the love of it. I was taking up stage time that others needed. They had career potential to fulfill.
If this post helps you buckle down, or question why you have to, you can thank me by cosine-ing my potential by hitting the like button below 🙂
Hey! Now you can give me $$$ to defray blog fees & buy coffee on my trip to Cape Breton – sweet,eh? paypal.me/TOpoet
Like my pictures? I post lots on Tumblr
