Most days self-doubt laps at my ankles
in pools that I hardly feel, with ripple effects
so small I don't even sift the footprints
in the sand. Other times it comes in waves,
striking me behind the knees. I wobble,
skim the water's surface with a grasping hand
that's never held on to anything except for broken
secrets, but I don't fall. The salt stings my eyes
but instead of closing them I resolutely
gaze at the sunset in the hopes that I could find
some written metaphor in the pink and orange clouds
about something like "starting over" or
"self-forgiveness". And then there are rare days
when there's an eclipse and I can't blind myself
with sunbeams or use an ultraviolet floodlight in my brain
to scare off all the lurking thoughts I can't pin-point
but know are there... that's when the self-doubt
comes in tsunami waves, and I don't fall but
sink like a wayward torpedo, farther than
any reaching hand could pull me
to shore, to normal rock bottom,
and I realize, as the oxygen slowly leaves my lungs,
as my vision darkens into obscurity,
that I've visited this abyss before.