The Could-Haves

Read the obituaries

if you haven’t lately:

 

A Broadway actress

who would have

stormed stages up the ladder

to fame, won two Tonys, and

with her portrayals sparked

empathy, brought insight into

the human condition, and

inspired people to live

died last week

when her parents sat her down

and administered The Talk:

that if she expected them to

pay for her college

she had a responsibility to

make it count,

to do something

Useful.

She applied that night

and, dreading their disdain,

changed her mind from

musical theatre

to chemical engineering.

 

A Creative Writing major

who would have

penned the literary masterwork

of the century, a combination

novel and poem that would have

emerged from underground and

taken on the meaning of

life and love and language

quite like nothing before it,

died last month

when his first college writing professor

gave him Reality Check 101:

that the sorts of long, experimental,

self-referential pieces

he was oh-so-into writing

are simply not what

people, much less the market,

want right now;

that you can’t make a living by

sitting at your computer screen

goofing off for page after page.

He took a long look

in the mirror that night and

finally told himself

the professor knows best--

scrapped the plans

for a masterpiece and

shifted focus

to young-adult dystopian novels.

 

A Philosophy and Art History double-major

who would have

lived for the present and

to the fullest

post-graduation--landed a solid

library job in his hometown,

did radio and expressed himself

through writing on the side, and

cultivated a circle of

friends, a reason to live--

died yesterday

when a friend of his parents’

sprang the old

“And what do you plan on doing with that?”

line on him over dinner:

that it was foolish to spend

four years of life and, more

important, four years of tuition

on a hobby, a major that

serves only the purpose of

self-enrichment

without a plan like

teaching.

 

The leading cause of death

among young people these days

is not cancer or

car crashes but rather

adults who think

they know better.

They preach that the meaning

we each find in life

is measured in dollars;

 

and some of them will

go to rallies

and hold up signs to

save the unborn, yet

they have no problem killing

unformed stars

and artists and authors

and prophets

and goals and

dreams and visions.

 

Campuses are

compasses

with as many directions

as they have degrees, and

all the ones in between;

and life is a blank wall

into which each person must

carve their own niche.

 

And what of the friendships

that never have a chance--

pairs of people whose selves would

fit like pieces of a jigsaw

but they talk themselves out of

talking to each other

because of a wise friend’s musings

about moving on and

putting people behind you, or

because Mommy said

not to talk to strangers

all those years ago?

 

And the black community,

the LGBT community,

religious minorities, and

oppressed women

have their advocates

and always will...

but who’s going to stand up

for the could-haves?

Reviews

[ScottDuval]

You mentioned this on your show, but as a music major, this poem really resonated with me. I may not have the nay-sayer "What are you gonna do with that?" kind of parents mentioned in the poem, but I experience frequent doubts from society in general, subject to it basically whenever I'm outside the walls of the music building. I have my own personal doubts about it most days, and in this poem I found my exact feelings on the whole "getting into the creative job market" thing outlined perfectly. I couldn't tell you how many ideas for YouTube Channels, songs, stories, poems, audio dramas, and a whole bunch of other creative ideas have been started and then deleted or abandoned because I had that nagging voice in my head.

ANYWAY, enough rambling. In case you couldn't tell, I liked the poem quite a lot.