Sophomoric

Her attempts are sophomoric at best. She sobs in frustration as she glances around the room. All those wasted canvases, all those stupid paintings. She copied Van Gogh, Monet, Goya, Picasso -- she tried her best, but she will never compare. She feels the helplessness of each day, of striving but never achieving, of hoping but never realizing.

And she feels alone. People ask her how it's going, when they're going to see her work in the Met or MoMA, when she'll be on the cover of Time. Each question is a nail in the coffin of her dreams. Each disappointed tone is a tear she hides at night.

What's so wrong with average, she wonders. A teacher had asked her class that once. What's so wrong with being just like everyone else?

Nothing, she'd thought to herself. She hadn't dared to say the words, because she didn't want people to look down on her. Didn't want to upset her mother's smile, or her father's bragging words. But deep in her heart, right next to the wild ambition, sat a card she was terrified to play: the card of being content.