“I Yam” by Tom Bridenhagen

Posted on 24. Sep, 2008 by Tom Bridenhagen in Literature

Recently I had the good (or bad, depending on your viewpoint) fortune to attend a birthday party for an old friend. As part of the festivities, we were forced to play one of those party games, “If you were a vegetable, what kind would you be and why?”

After profoundly meditating on the situation for a while, I eschewed the mundane and, instead, I chose the yam for the vegetable that best represents me after a little poem just popped into my head. Here ’tis.

“I Yam”

by Tom Bridenhagen

I yam what I yam

As Popeye would say.

I’m not my tomorrows.

I’m not yesterday.

But the me that is me,

The me you can’t see

Is the sum of my past,

What they used to be.

Is the sum of my past.

The things that I’ve done.