The Essentials of Self-Doubt (A Poem)

“It’s been written before,
And, tell me, who am I
To write anything for
Anyone, anyway?

The question, it lingers.
Hot breath on a window.
Beyond, the great, wide world
Stands waiting, unaware

I repeat, I shout, and
This fog, it comes and fades.
The glass surface marked up
With fingerprints of fear

The world, it cannot hear me.
But even if it could,
Out there, my self-judgment
Would dissolve to thin air

Out there, in the real world,
My worries are just wind,
Soon to be a flower’s breath.
I can trap myself nowhere

So I sit in this glass room
Entwined with the silence.
Imprisoning myself, here
My suffering has meaning.

I sit with it a while.
Rub grief between my fingers,
Smudge failure on my thighs,
Breathe doubt into my lungs.

And when that is okay,
I will, again, face the day.
More humble, yet more keen.
Less certain, yet more real.