A Weed
Who am I?
I don't know
(my past is a frenzied blur I hate to remember
the future a question I fear to ask)
All I know is I want the all
or a poetically decided nothing.
Because I want to be known-
with awed whispers following always
but still, I want to fade and whither like a flower after spring
(when in truth I'm a weed with delusions of grandeur)
And I don't know who or what I am,
but I know I've been on the top
(feeling desparate and lonely)
and been on the bottom
(feeling forsaken and abandoned)
And know that the top is bad,
But the bottom is just as cutthroat
and to stay in the middle is unheard of.
Because you must be great!
You must standout!
You must be special! and make the one percent!
And the bottom while hated is still acknowledged
while mediocrity is unseen,
forgotten in the crowd
I don't know what I dream to be.
I only wish to live spectacularly-
or die young tragically.
And I want to overcome those overwhelming odds
that were never even set against me.
I want to speak inspiringly,
to sing emotionally,
to dance like the west wind moves me.
And poems and symphonies I wish to write
whirl in my brain to be plucked by another
more gifted than I at traversing the mind,
and skilled in committing idea to paper
For I am a poet
whose best works were lovingly composed
and quickly forgotten
in the dead of night by a tired brain-
And I am the world
fighting to grow when everything has been found
With no more land to claim
or great wars to find reknown in-
Because I am the universe
giant and unknown and dreadfully self-important
and infuriating and inconceivable,
and alone-
And I am blade of grass
falling into that feared monotony
(because if all are special than so are none)
And foremost,
I am a weed
jealously competing with the flowers
to be perfect-
But just pulled out
before my turn has ended.