Is it that my hands are too slow or my mind too fast. Is it that my ambitions are too high or my progress too slow. Words seem to fail me in this my time of need. As the only emotion I feel throbbing in my mind is that of frustration.  Like a painful sore my abilities do not meet my expectations, I become afraid of the pencil and my art has become my prison and punishment.  It is like a whip upon my back, an insult against my person. Every pencil etch becomes a scream of inexperience,  every drawing becomes a draining endeavor of self-mutilation.  I will the lines and figures to take their proper places, but like inexperienced children they dance and jeer and jump mercilessly on my fears that I am inadequate. To whom should I measure myself to, for those above me seem to sour like eagles. They fly seemingly free from the ropes of doubt that snake around the throat of my art. Those below me are untouchable as if merely by looking at them I am drawn down to the muck and mud of mediocrity. Perhaps I think too highly of myself, but this talent I have is a curse upon my person. Oh how I wish that some days I had never picked up such a cursed pencil and put a line upon the paper. Like a child wailing in the middle of the night I begin to regret this arts conception.  Like a wife turned into a shrill banshee I regret my marriage to this art form. Why I ask my cruel mistress. Why do you expect so much of me. Why is every line I put down on the page not good enough for you. Why do my shapes and figures not appease you critical eye. Why do you dive that blade of criticism deeply into my side, and painfully twist  until you make sure that I have died.  

Is this the process. Am I to simply endure until a morning comes where you will lovingly embrace me and hold me until the pain of the years of torment subside? How do you expect me to love you?
When you tantalize me with the potential you see within me. How do you expect me to reach for you my art, when you pull yourself ever the farther away? What reason do I have to put a pencil to paper?  
Oh this perpetual agony I suffer, this intense need I feel, this addiction of creation I need to fulfill.  You call to me, you tug at my very soul you are a craving that lives far deeper in me than anything I have ever felt before. I must rise to the call I must seek out the pencil like a man racked with thirst must then seek out water. I cannot allow my ambition to die. I will not wear the widow’s robes, or the mourners color. But how am I to rise when the very earth around me slips beneath my touch. My arms grow weary from this fight and my mind is tiered of this question.

Are my hands too slow for my mind? Are ambitions too big for my ability? And if I do truly posses the tools and my talent isn't stale then how am I to progress. How am I to grow?  I am a flower overcast by the shadow of doubt yearning for the sun.