Good Enough: A Poem

Sawaiz Riaz

‘Good Enough’ is a poem written by me that empowers some, touches others, and makes most people feel emotionally understood. Happy reading!

For all those times they told me,
I wasn’t good enough,
I covertly bawled my eyes out,
Just so from the outside, I could look tough.

Tough like that bridge that’ll never break,
Or that muscle in your body that’ll never ache,
Maybe, the foundation of that bridge was hit by an earthquake,
Wanting all of their care and empathy, or perhaps just a flake.

What do I need to do to be good enough?
Climb mountains or swim seas,
Or run through deserts, barefooted.
Would that appease?

But what if I reach to them, bleary and beaten?
Or my reliance on them, fully eaten?
Would that feed their stupid egos?
Or should another prick furthermore sweeten?

Sweeten to the extent that it turns bittersweet,
Their words had wounded me, from top to the feet,
I felt like the machine that was weary and obsolete,
Whose axles and pulleys could be thrown out in the street.

They never had known, I wasn’t street meat,
I was farm-grown, golden, sunkissed wheat,
A household delicacy, a delectable treat,
But darling! They’d never know. Their cognition was never neat.

For all those times I swam through oceanic waves,
There’s this handful of lessons, I’ve proudly embraced,
From the lot, there’s one I’ve highly placed,
It is, that ‘regret has the most lasting after-taste.’

The other ones being, ‘what glitters is not gold,
‘When you don’t get something, you just gotta hold,
Even when it’s terribly scorching, or relentlessly cold,’
‘Some cuts leave scars that hurt, even more, when they’re old’

Could you guess what made me stay still,
In the cocoon, I was in, out of a free will?
They told me my existence wasn’t enough to fulfill,
So I embraced quietude, you know, as an act of Goodwill.

For all that time I was silent, I was healing from within,
Discovering all of the energies that I had, built in,
From the little hole in the cocoon, I let the sunshine in,
That warmed my heart, my soul, and my blooming skin.

In a few years, the transformation of me surprised my own self,
My fragility learned to fight for itself,
There was this voice nudging me, ‘you gotta stand up for yourself,
For how long will you stay in a capsule, this protective shell?’

In no time it struck me, it was my time to shine,
I realized my eccentricities were entirely benign,
To be different than the others is actually a good sign,
It was time that was required and all was meant to be fine.

Soon I knew I didn’t come this far only to come this far,
I learned, ‘You can’t be sorry for the person that you are’,
I waited long for this metamorphosis, the witness is the stars,
Already feels like ages that I’m not feeling up to par.

It was about time I spread my wings and learn how to fly,
And look at toxic people, audaciously, in the eye,
I’ve finally come to a conclusion, don’t even ask why,
This is not a world for the feeble and for the shy.

There’s a handful of advice, in my bag I have stowed,
When you’re feeling low, you just have to know,
True colors bling bright, virtuousness surely shows,
And if they don’t, don’t worry, you gotta take it slow.

Penned by Sawaiz Riaz

Read another poem written by me by clicking here.