Want to Be
One day
when we were young
Owen asked me,
“What do you want to be when you grow up?”
“I don’t know,” I said.
“I want to be an astronaut.
It’d be so cool to go into outer space
and wear a space suit
and do space stuff.”
Several years later
Owen asked me again,
“What are you going to be when you grow up?”
“I don’t know,” I said.
“I’m going to be a professional soccer player.
My parents and coach say I’m good enough
to get scholarships for it, and I want
to get into one of the top leagues.”
Another set of years passed,
and Owen again asked me,
“What are you going into?”
“I don’t know,” I said.
“I’m pretty much set to be a welder.
An astronaut is ‘too impractical’—I’d
never get there, anyway—and I focused too much
on soccer and not enough on my grades.
Spent too much time on things I’d never make it with.”
“Welders are good,” I told him.
“Welders are always needed.
There are always things to be welded
that machines can’t tackle.”
Owen never asked me again.
It made me think, though,
so one day, I asked something.
When I turned and asked the world,
“What do you want to be when you grow up?”
all I heard was sadness.