Potentially Extinct

I arrive, full of potential and ideas. I have constructed a foundation for eighteen years and upon this structure, I place every ounce of creativity and originality I own. I am comfortable with myself and my notions.

Yet the world expects me to change, to conform, to readjust myself in order to be a "success." External forces grade, edit and criticize all in which I believe. I experience the world every day, and every day a piece of myself is torn away to make room for someone else's conception.

So I will go home today and futilely attempt to reconstruct what is crucial to me.

But tomorrow, the excavators will return to tear down the neighborhood and with it, little house on the corner to make room for shopping mall. Progress is always with us, but sometimes we lose something in the process.
- Mary O. Fumento, 1987