what you can do
sometimes we can get a little caught up
in the notion that there’s something wrong
with us, when in reality there’s something
about our circumstance that has changed —
we might think we’re broken or we need
to be fixed or saved, but really we
just need to acknowledge the strength
that remains — the power inside us,
the talent, the hunger, the desire —
that stuff is all still there, no matter what
happens to us…bodies age and minds
expand — there’s no weakness in that —
flesh gets torn open, but it heals all the same,
leaving lines of light on dark, these plastic
brains, these voices, they hush and they
elevate, the crucial notion for us to create…
is a blessing that’s never left us, and will
never leave us if we continue to give ourselves
up to the feeling…so stand up and walk, because
the gods were trying to test you, to observe
what your substance is, to see if you might
recapture, reinvent…yourself
and to find out if you could roll with it, and go
with it, so don’t go back, don’t ever go back,
face forward, look ahead, and walk a few steps —
you know what you can do, what you’re capable of
Garbage Notes:
The message in this poem is a pretty straightforward one, but I think it can be easy for us to forget sometimes.
When life gets tough or when bad things happen, we tend to think there’s something wrong with us. We blame ourselves. We think we’re sick or we’re fucked up or we need someone who knows better to tell us what to do.
What gets lost on us is the simple fact that we are the ones who know better.
If you’ve lived any amount of life on this planet whatsoever. If you’re an adult and you’ve been paying taxes for years and you work hard and you’ve been around the block a few times, then you should be able to bank on a certain amount of knowledge and wisdom. This is the stuff that you acquire by making mistakes and starting over.
I’ve had a lot of self doubt through the years. I’ve learned things the hard way. I’ve tried and failed and I’ve been screwed over unfairly countless times. But when I wrote this poem, I wrote it as a reminder to myself that despite all of it, there’s nothing really wrong with me.
It was a reminder to believe in myself. Because no matter what I’ve gone through, I could always rely on my internal strength and my creativity and my intelligence to get me through. This is my resilience.
For me, writing has a lot to do with it. I see writing as a thing that can happen no matter how bad life gets. As long as I have access to a laptop, some wifi, and a more or less quiet space to exist, then I could transform whatever bullshit is happening around me into something useful, something positive, something that other people can connect with. This is my power.
Sure, you’ll find challenges that will get in the way of you being able to access your power. I know just recently I have had a whole host of changes in my life that have made it much more challenging to get to that place where I can access my creative mind. But still, I understand that if I’m patient and stay tuned into myself and my abilities, then those skills and those protective factors will never leave me.
So I guess the simple message is—if you think there’s something wrong with you, maybe re-think that. Consider all the ways in which you know you’re more than capable of thriving. And recapture it. You know you can. You know what you can do.
Franco Amati 2024
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Confidence is the gas in the writer's car
So truth! Nice writing Franco🙏🏻