don’t be defeatist
they say
as if i am not already worn to ruin
as if my fingers have not bled
all i am capable of bleeding
over their pristine paper sheets

just believe in yourself
they say
as if belief alone has ever offered salvation
as if i could will myself into being
as so many others wish they could with god

all you can do is your best
they say
but what if this is my best?
what if i am a husk of a human being
before i reach the age of 30
what if all my light was used up
in a voltage too high
squeezed out of me like a surge
in an electrical storm

what if my peak is behind me
looming above me like atlas
blotting out the sun
and leaving me to get swept up
in the wake of an overachiever
what if i am incapable of what you believed in me
because you pushed me too hard, for too long
because what you needed of me you needed immediately
you took me in your hands like goliath took his stone
wrung me out until i was bloodless
wrote out my worth and found your pen inkless before you’d reached the end

worth is relative
i say
now that i forced you to see your mistake
now that i am bedridden and useless and limp like a doll
now that my good days are not when i write 100 pages
but when i remember to drink water
when i remember to bathe and eat and wake before noon
as if all your pushing just wound me up like a coil
set me tight enough to regress unto the mean

i am doing my best
i say
now that i am barely capable of anything at all
now that the pedestal you put me on looked like a ledge
and you see it for what it was
now that it’s too late to walk back from the gallows
because i’ve already been hung like a ghost
and all i do these days is sway in the wind


i have been defeated
i say
but it was because you put me in the colosseum
with nothing but my tired self leaning on my tired self
and i lay on the floor waiting for the lions to come

i have been defeated
i say
to my defeatist self
because no one stays around to watch a losing fight.