I was in the chorus of a musical
when I was eleven.
After the first rehearsal
it was suggested that my talents lay elsewhere.
Since then
I have believed I cannot sing.
Sometime, in elementary school I learned
that I cannot draw.
Decades later I found out that drawing is a skill
that is learned.
As it turns out,
I can draw,
sort of.
Better, if I practice.
I was never told
I was bad at math.
It did come easier
than to many others.
I was put in the math box.
I wonder
about all the children and those have grown who were told
in words, or otherwise they were bad
at singing
or drawing
or math
or something else.
When maybe
they would have understood it a day
a week
a month
or a year later.
But a door closed for them that day.
–Win Treese
From the forthcoming collection “In the Cloud: Poems for a Technological Age” by Win Treese Reprinted by permission.
