“The Wrong Gift” by Adisa Grant
February 4, 2025
They beg for food and scrunch up their faces when they don’t like the taste
Perpetuating a cycle of waste
Quick to upturn their noses while succulent success is simmering
Snuffing the flame that cooks it
Yet the first to complain when there is nothing on their plate
Every gift is not treated equally
They tell you to pursue your dreams
Use your talents to navigate the world and create a lens to aid the vision of the mind’s eye
But when the glasses don’t show them what they wanted to see they are tossed
Called useless and defective when all they do is show the truth
And if it doesn’t suit every player the game is blamed
Because every gift is not treated equally
They flock like a murder
Killing individuality
Limiting expectations and stereotypes their accomplice
Sucking the living out of life
Encasing ‘acceptable’ in a thick sheet of ice, tinted with obedience
Because every gift is not treated equally
And the scales of justice and equality
Are tipped out of balance by the weight of a submissive world.
Beneath the awe at the audacity for him to melt the cheap silicone mold he was forced into
The audacity of finding the keys locking his muscles into motion
The tasks he was given defined by his past
His present life is a revolutionary sequel in comparison to the formulaic and predictable novella trilogy it succeeded.
Beneath the blanketing all-encompassing awe
A cold shivering purpose
Esoteric by nature yet fading beyond the feasible tangible realities of the world
Into a poorly held together construct in our minds in desperate need of renovation
Because across every sea another land
A land with more beauty than the last
A land one can only get to by swimming through the thin watered-down definitions of normal
Connected loosely by the sea floor to the continental framework upon which we live on and by
Purpose holds onto its life
Holds onto its spot in our minds to remind us
That every quirk should be appreciated not ridiculed
And that every gift should be treated equally.
This poem was written by Adisa Grant, a 2024-25 Youth Poetry Fellow. Performed at the Seattle Arts & Lectures Literary Arts Series event with Michele Norris at Benaroya Hall on Tuesday, February 4, 2025.