Making My Own Mentor

Growing up, I did not have an answer

to the question 

“who is your role model?” 

I would answer 

“I do not know”

and to this day

I have no answer. 

What makes someone a role model? 

Or a mentor? 

Why do we look up to them?

I have not had people

who were worthy of the title “mentor”

in my life. 

Instead people have shown me

who I do not want to be

who I will never become

People who hurt me and 

made me feel like nothing

only to continue using me. 

People who didn’t understand

and didn’t try to. 

People who weren’t hurting me

but it felt like they were 

because I was insecure. 

These are the people who became my mentors. 

The people I looked down on

and vowed never to be. 

I did not have someone 

who showed me who to be

the good qualities I wanted to have

I had people who failed me

some who didn’t care about me

and others who didn’t know

what I wanted them to be to me. 

But through the heartbreak and failure

I found inspiration

I found a role model

I found myself. 

I was all I needed to look up to. 

I was enough 

My role model, my mentor,

is not one good person or quality

but many bad ones 

that I used to determine what kind of person 

I don’t want to be like.