Am I Gifted Or What? Poem by M Paul Burress

Am I Gifted or What?

by M Paul Burress

It is very difficult to tell about this, on account of I don't want that 'poppanazi outfit' they talk about, a chasing me around sneaking pictures and everything. I’m not right sure I ought to telling about stuff like this anyway, but I heard someone say this is the age of 'coming out'. Well, here here I come.

I …….. uhhhh, well……… I have this gift, yes a gift, now that's really all you can call it. I managed to keep it hidden through most of my life. It, and me, began small and weak, but it developed into something useful and a quite remarkable ability as well. Let me first say, there are many kinds of gifts and not all are useful, for instance, my neighbor’s dog leaves me a gift on my front lawn every day and I have not found that useful. Every time I go down my driveway past his house, there he is, sitting on his nice clean lawn, I slow down to a crawl and we just glare at each other. Anyway, I have thought of the perfect solution to that little problem, Have you ever heard of REGIFTING? I'm going to begin mailing the doggie's gifts anonymously back to the it's owner.

Okay, back to gifts, now the sort of gift I am referring to is more on the order of ‘special abilities’, that’s the kind I have. Dad burn dog anyway, I shouldn’t of brought that business up. Now I’m mad as fire again! ……………… Now the gift that I have is, “Amplified Directional Hind Sight” I think that is the technical term for it. I have polished this gift over the years until I can clearly see what I should have said or, should have done, in merely minutes, however, it works after it’s absolutely too late to make one bit of difference what so ever. I’m hardly the man you should to take on in an argument, I mean after you're gone I can think of these really intelligent come backs and stuff, and you can’t answer a word to it. It’s a sight, at the people, and I mean educated ones too, that I’ve given a real drubbing with stunningly clever answers, after they are miles down the road, and they just have to sit and take it.

Having a gift like this is not only tricky, but can be dangerous too, it’s like having to drive with a giant rear view mirror in front of you that’s showing you what you passed several minutes ago, ……….. see now, I told you it’s tricky.

Lately I been wondering, is there more to be gotten out of my gift than I’m getting? I mean, what if my gift faced just the opposite direction. Foresight is useful too, there’s been a number of times I could have used a little of that. I will admit that I tried reversing ‘the gift’ once, “I won’t try that again! ”, I’d say the difficulty level, on a scale of one to ten is....impossible, it would be like making a sharp “u” turn with a high speed locomotive.
As I was working out side today, I looked up and my the man next door was coming up the driveway, when he neared he called out 'Howdy neighbor' so I stopped what I was doing and sat down on a handy boulder next to me. 'I saw you up here working away, shoveling something' and I wanted to talk to you. I have some bad news, I'm afraid we have to move away, my job has transferred me to another city. Bad news? Bad news? What Bad news? I’m thinking, where are the Dallas Cheerleaders when you need them? Furthermore, he continued, the company has already leased a house for us, but it doesn't except animals. Last night he said, I gathered the whole family for the most important meeting and decision we ever had to make, and we agreed one hundred percent that you had been such nice neighbor that the only way we could repay your kindness to us is to give our dog to you. Please Sir except this dog as our humble thank you gift. Wait! Wait! I I said I need a moment, I have to try to think. Now, how can anybody think when they’re are fighting back tears from a collapsing dream? Well ………. I finally said, breaking a three minute silence, I reckon I'll take him, seeing how we only have one serious disagreement 'tween us anyway. As the fellow walked away happy, I started for my house to tell my wife how smart a man I am, I have fixed the neighbor's dog from ever messing somebody else’s yard ever again I bragged, It's our dog now, it's his own yard. All I ever wanted was for him to do his business in his own yard, and now he will. Hang on a minute, I think I feel 'my gift' starting up and it might have something to tell me.