“Build-a-Man” by Tyàe Grant

Optimism

The hidden variable

The reason I be breaking my own heart

Cuz I fall in love with potential

Negating what you keep showing me

Showing me that you don’t deserve me

It’s exhausting

Creating scenarios of the “what could be’s”

And I’d argue the “what should be’s”

But you never follow the script

But it’s okay because I’m flexible

Adjusting and giving you excuse after excuse

Finding myself waiting for you to be ready for me

But you would never be

Everything I based this assumption on came from me

The could be’s and the should be’s

And never what is

I’ve been blinded

But it isn’t your fault

Technically you did nothing wrong at all

I’m just having a hard time accepting

That people are only as good as they choose to be

And what they choose to be is not up to me...

And I guess

In the end you seem better as the person I created in my head

Who you would be if I could actually build-a-man

Tyàe Grant is from Chicago, Illinois and served as a 2022-2023 LSWA Student Assistant. She believes that poetry is a form advocacy and a great way to learn and reflect on different things that life may bring.