Gift or Curse?

They hail it as a gift,

Wrapped in the silk of expectations

Laced with frail threads of hope

Whispering “you were meant for more”.

It drapes over your shoulder

Like an visible mantle, not yet tangible

But visceral enough to haunt you,

It festers in the marrow of your ambition

Lurking behind every incomplete endeavour

Every missed opportunity,

And if you falter

They call it squandered

Though if you triumph

They’ll say you always had it

And term it as luck,

And you lie there in between

The agony of suffocation

Of “wasted potential” Of “almosts” and “not enough” Only you know the exquisite torment

Of being “capable” Yet shackled by the weight of

“What you could have been” Potential—a gift that feels more like a curse.

 

by Aadrika R. Khusharia , Btech 2025 batch