The inner critic
protects me from
reality and success;
It knows best.
It reminds me of
my hopeless plight,
my dark destiny,
my night of a
thousand storms.

Councillors say,
"Examine those thoughts.
Challenge them, are
they rational? "
I nod and smile,
and somewhere there
is a sparrow in me
that wants to sing,
that agrees with
the blue skies, and
the trees, and the wings
that have carried it
away from the pain.

But then the critic
and its minions
chatter away, and
remind me of failures,
they say,
"The play has already been written.
You're just doing your part-
your small walk on part.
You don't get to rewrite it.
It's been written, it's finished.
You being a writer must appreciate
irony, isn't it ironic;
Thomas, That no matter
how bad you want it,
you can't have it.
It's been decided, it's predestined,
long before you were born.
You lose, some win, but not you."

I faintly hear the dying song
of the sparrow, as I rise once again
and stumble towards the abyss.