Poem #2: Surrounded

I use to pride myself in being the dumbest one in my group. Wait, let me rephrase that. I like to surround myself with people who are smarter than me. Using their knowledge to increase the appearance of my own. A perennial perpetration of elevation, if you will. Trying, striving, wanting to be better, but falling short.

I have been deemed to have “potential.”

Is that meant to be a complement or an insult?

“She has great potential”

It’s like saying, “you could be good, but you’re not.” Potential is a hard word to live up to. All I think of when I hear that word is, that dream deferred. I am that raisin. I have that sun; I’ve birthed a stance of inequity. And inequity next to genius is stagnant. But the issue is that I can’t figure if that genius is mad, or hungry; knowing that an unfed understanding is a cancer rapidly expanding. Killing the cells of upward mobility, crippling them to the point where thirst for comprehension is left paraplegic.

So I limp.

Like Jacob touched by God.

My desires for betterment burn.

So I surround myself with better. I hope for a mob action of the mind. Wanting my arrested development to push me; urging my pride to be intact. Understanding that those around me are not smarter, but smart enough to keep me around. Hoping to no longer be strapped down with potential, but with released to realization.

Poem #1: Work in Progress

I'd be lying if I said I never doubt you, but
I know that I couldn't live without you
No, I couldn't breathe,
And I couldn't see,
I just wouldn't be
And why y'all would see
is an unwatered seed
Dried up in the weeds
and in dyer need
Of a soul to pray for me
Not a parable or a prophecy
Just using honesty
It's a virtue
Say em to yourself
Lies still hurt you
I've done my dirt too,
I still do it.
I see the stop sign and I,
I run through it
Taking risks, I'm afraid to quit
But it's God's plan I should fight to fit
So the world loosens it's grip
And I can add brick my brick
To this single foundation
And at the next crosswords I'll pass with no citation
So I look forward to next time.
And while I force this rhyme
And leave hyperbole out of this diction
The non-fiction I must confess
Is that I am, and always will be a work in progress

Doing More...

I need to get back to writing. It's so funny how you get this degree, and then you get a job, and that degree tends to move down on the importance-meter. Not saying that I don't use tools that my classes taught me in my every day life, I do, but I'm not writing, I'm not reading, I'm not in a constant stream of education like I was in College. I miss it. I miss it so much I wish I could go back to school just to taste it. But what I'm beginning to realize is that I don't need school for that, I just need time and effort. So I'm challenging myself to create a poem a week, however wack it might be, just to get myself in the mood. What that gives me is around 50 poems. So lets get to work.