others overestimate my abilities
i am nowhere near as clever, confident or capable as they think i am
my carefully constructed facade has fooled them while the very vulnerability i attempted to hide was only amplified
even when i try and tell them, it is heralded as humility or humor
despite this massive mismatch, somehow their belief blossoms into big, beautiful dreams
but they feel borrowed
my mind screams
STOP
dreams like these don’t belong to someone like you
so, i store them away
until
something in that secret, sacred space inside myself whispers… what if?
Katherine Mendel is a computer science and mathematics student at the College of Saint Benedict and Saint John’s University. Her poetry has previously been published in her college’s underground literary magazine, Surfaced. She loves reading, laughing and bread.