They call me a jack of all trades
as if the list were something to be proud of.
But I have started to wonder
if my skills are not accomplishments
but evidence.
Exhibit A:
I can paint—
but never became a painter.
Exhibit B:
I can shape clay,
work with paper,
bend steel into something beautiful—
and still never made
the one thing worth putting my name on.
Exhibit C:
I can dye hair, cut it,
turn someone\'s reflection
into something they recognize—
yet I have spent years
not recognizing myself.
Exhibit D:
I can write worlds from nothing.
Give strangers histories.
Make characters breathe.
Invent entire lives
for people who never existed.
And somehow
I could never invent
a version of myself
I was proud to inhabit.
Exhibit E:
I can cook.
Bake.
Care for animals.
Know plants by name.
Remember useless facts
no one asked me to remember.
Look how much I can do.
Look how little of it
became something.
That is the cruelest part.
My hands are full of proof
that I am capable—
and every piece of proof
can be entered into evidence
against me.
Because if I could do all this,
if I could become competent
in so many different directions,
then why, after all these years,
is there still no single thing
I can point to and say:
There.
That is what I was made for.
The verdict was never
that I was incapable.
It was worse.
I was capable of almost everything,
and somehow still became
nothing I could call my own.