I used to be full of desperate self-belief

but after countless failures

I’m full of something else.

I will talk to people on the phone

about my problem

and their silence is a clue.

There are no affirmations

all of their recommendations

were tried,

and have failed!

It’s much more difficult being me

because

I’m the failure

but even they, want me to stop.

Because

if you do what someone says, and it doesn’t go right

they will say,

“No…no, you didn’t do it right!”

and then, you take their advice, again

and your failure is their failure

Your pain is far worse than their pain, but

they

get off on their vanity,

and you keep reminding them

that they are wrong,

and they didn’t have the guts

to figure that out

the hard way.

“Pray more,” they say.

“I did, I did.”

“God doesn’t want you to have it.”

“God doesn’t care.”

“He cares—he just doesn’t want you to succeed—your purpose is elsewhere. Now, stop this insanity!”

I won’t say I’ve tried every way

I talk on the phone, “I’m like that piece of marble chipped away

I can’t be anything else—I was always there, a bust of nobody.”

And they want me to be a marble column, to support some nameless structure

with the weight of responsibility on my shoulders

just like them

Well, fuck them.