Laments of an Egghead

Hello, my name is genius

That’s all anyone seems to call me

The stupidest thing is I’m not even one

’Cause a genius knows stupidest isn’t a word- wait, it is!

but it hurts when people think my only talent is balancing chemical equations, it hurts that no one seems to think there might be more to me than just my analytical prowess but when one uses words like those it’s a large hairy mole on your face, so fascinating you can’t look away but as to whose face it’s on you’ll never know

I shouldn’t be complaining about my gifts for what could they be if not blessing after blessing

But if I was dumb I wouldn’t have figured out why the tension in my house is like a loaded slingshot

Being average might be easy, because then my first layer couldn’t be named and people would have to peel it away to see what’s inside like the way I put everyone else before me before I remember that I too exist but wishes will be wishes and dreams will be dreams

My parents always worry about me getting a boyfriend which I find ridiculous- if I’m really such a know-it-all who’d notice my snarkily painful humour or my slightly pretty eyes

People like putting everything into boxes and when they realise that something’s shape is too odd to fit they squish it till it does, with their squares and linear thought processes my scribbly whirls and spirals and loopety-loops that make thinking riding the Great White Shark at Six Flags just don’t compute

So sometimes I try thinking in squares, the shape of a fashion magazine, to become a normal person and the only tell is the strained little cry that escapes me when I say I don’t know but one day I happen to scream while thinking a rollercoaster and the façade crumbles away and they use its pieces to build me a pedestal, higher than the Chrysler building and now I’m going to be Bill Gates the second though I don’t even know what a binary is but when I’m thirty and not a multibillionaire they’ll ask where I went wrong but how can I go wrong if I never started right?

Who am I- to complain, having people surprised when you manage to print your name on top of the worksheet would be a capital insult but no one would tut and sigh when you amount to nothing

But I should shut up children in Africa could be eating my intelligence for dinner so I must suck it up and play the role I’ve been assigned- it’s a damn good one so

Hello, I’m genius

Shall I balance your equations?