Foil On A Piece Of Paper Poem by Starfish ZA

I don't have a foil seal
on a piece of paper.
Does it make me less than you?

With years of battles borne,
scars carried quietly,
unrelentingly giving my best
and now this feeling of inadequacy
because I do not fit your mould.

I am the wayback machine,
from the wayback generation,
from times gone past,
where foil on papers
didn't matter much.

Living in a different time,
where borders were protected
and money was scarce.
It didn't make me less human.
I was never made to feel less.

I carry skills
modern times may never know
integrity and passion,
not privilege,
driving me to make a success
of everything I touch.

I am the wayback machine,
from the wayback generation,
from times gone past,
where foil on papers
didn't matter much.

Now I am put in a box.
For the first time,
never quite good enough,
left feeling numb
to my inner core.

Yet what a privilege
to be part of the wayback generation.

I remember the first computers.
I explored.
I learned.
I progressed as they progressed.

I watched the impossible
become ordinary.

I watched the world change
and changed with it
learning, adapting,
moving forward.

We learned before the answers
were always at our fingertips.
We worked things out.
We made things work.
We carried knowledge
not always written on paper.

And still I wonder
even if I had earned a degree then,
what would it mean today?

Would that paper tell you
who I became?
Would the foil seal show you
the battles fought,
the lessons learned,
the years spent adapting?

I am the wayback machine,
from the wayback generation,
from times gone past,
where foil on papers
didn't matter much.

Not less.

Just forged
in a different time.