#impostersyndrome
I don’t know how to write.
I have no finesse, I don’t understand the rules
I’m pretty sure I used that comma wrong.
I never amounted to anything.
I don’t know… no I know my being too self aware put me here.
There’s something about walking a line that keeps you balanced but I tipped to far over to one side.
My mind is going.
I can feel it.
I’m not sure if I detached too hard or if my mind is just really giving up.
My mind feels silent and noisy all at once.
I know I’m confused but I don’t want to take the time to figure it out.
Am I an imposter? Is any of this real?
Why do I feel like I am floating but not in a good way.
Is there even a good way to float.
I feel high even when I am not.
I have so much to say but no voice.
Even if I had something to say is it important.
Is it the sickness I now carry?
Is it eating away at my brain?
My motor function skills are loose and unsure.
I used to be so confident and steady fast in these things.
Is this man made or has it always been around:
Am I over diagnosed?
Is it this or is it that?
Is it still too taboo to talk about?
Does my anxiety and fibro make you uncomfortable?
That’s funny because it REALLY makes me uncomfortable.
Depression is real.
Anxiety is real.
It’s all real.
Can’t be explained only experienced.
Maybe you don’t like it.
Maybe it’s too negative.
Well it’s my life.
It’s my reality.
I’m not sorry if it interrupts your day just block me.
Where is my brain.
It’s almost gone.
Feb 27, 2025
Feb 27, 2025 at 9:53 PM UTC
Sure, I’m happy you liked it.
That’s the point, right?
Somebody claps and you pretend it means you deserve the stage.
But I feel like a thief.
Because I am not just writing.
I am reaching.
I am reaching for the kind of hunger
that made Bukowski a throat with legs,
the kind of fire
Wanda Coleman carried like a second sun,
the kind of tenderness
that turns Andrea Gibson into a siren for the living.
I take a little of each,
rub it into my lines,
and hope it passes for truth.
I steal voices the way some men steal cigarettes.
Not because they need them.
Because it’s there.
Because it makes the hands feel busy.
I am an old, privileged white guy
with clean enough hands
to notice the dirt under my nails
and call it depth.
But, none of it is earned.
Not by me.
Yeah, I’ve got my own pain.
Everybody does.
“Trauma is trauma,”
the therapists say,
and you nod like that settles the bill.
It doesn’t.
Because the stories might be mine,
but the sound of them
feels like somebody else’s mouth.
And I know it.
But I write anyway.
I call it art.
I call it honesty.
I call it the only thing I can do
that makes the day less empty.
But some nights it feels like fraud.
Like I’m wearing a coat off another man’s back
and acting surprised it fits.
So yes,
poetry is cheating. Still.
Jan 5
Jan 5, 2026 at 9:07 PM UTC
I work hard to waste it
The money
The time
The potential
Take a break to be wasted
Useless
Manic
Sporadic
I try but I can't fake ****
No smiles
No lies
No illusions
Yet some how, I'm still the fakest
The masquerade
The fraud
The imposter
Oct 26, 2025
Oct 26, 2025 at 3:14 PM UTC
Why do I feel like I do not belong when I know I do
Why do I feel low when all I ever dreamt is of sky
Why do I why do I why do I
Can you hold my hand and end my despair
Can you tell me what I deserve when I clearly don’t understand
I’m a mess sinking down in all of this distress
Nowhere to go no one to call I came so far away searching for my happiness gone
Show me some mercy for I can’t catch a break
For every love I got turned out fake
For every soul I saved, I’ve not been repaid
Why do I feel like I deserve it all when I know I don’t
Why do I feel controlled when all I ever dreamt is to be uncontrolled
Why do I why do I why do I
Can you show me the way out of my misery
Can you find me the peace which I am not able to
I’m a chaos finding an order for which only lord knows might be my agony
Having a brainstorm I find myself in a collapse
I got no one to blame for I know I’m my worst enemy
Here I stand with my sorrow with my aching
Hoping for a way out, looking for an end of it
Sep 30, 2025
Sep 30, 2025 at 5:15 AM UTC
I look into the mirror
To search for someone real
And wonder what they see in me—
What do they think I feel?
How do they view my character,
This puppet with no strings?
Do they read the way I move,
The clothing that I wear?
And hear the thoughts I tell myself
Reflected in the glass?
Or are they blurred into refrain,
Caught behind a broken pane?
When I was young, I loved the spark
Of patterns, rules, and numbered things.
A mind that burned to understand—
But not the ache emotion brings.
I felt too much—each win a rush,
Each loss a flood I couldn’t name.
No one taught me how to swim,
So I built walls to block the blame.
I hid, I ran, I shut it down—
Each overflow, a threat to drown.
So I learned to think instead:
Why use my heart? I have a head.
Now, I flinch when they perceive
The good in me, when I succeed.
Their praise feels sharp instead of kind,
As if, somehow, they’ve been deceived.
They cheer, but still I feel exposed—
Each glance reflects what isn’t real.
Their gaze, a scalpel tracing seams;
A fraud I fear they might reveal.
I fit in like a puzzle piece,
Lying face down on the table—
Pressed to match a perfect frame,
Mistaken for the same.
I try to mirror how they feel—
Their warmth, their ease, their grace.
But through the glass it cannot pass
And I reflect a cold embrace.
I reach with words instead of warmth,
A mind that steps where hearts would leap.
They knock, but find a hollow sound—
A depth I’ve buried far too deep.
And as they drift beyond my reach,
I rarely chase, or ask them why.
We part like threads pulled from a seam—
Still woven, but untied.
I waste the hours on the floor,
Scrolling dreams I never start.
The list of things I swore I'd make—
A game, a poem, a work of art.
The sun slips in, then disappears—
I barely blink before it's night.
Another year collects like dust,
And still, no spark will catch alight.
Then I look into the mirror,
My face already wet with tears—
A storm inside I cannot brace,
And watch myself collapse.
Aug 6, 2025
Aug 6, 2025 at 12:35 AM UTC
The words claw themselves
through miles of skin
and bone.
It is a path carved
of blood and tissue,
a journey made
in the silences
between sentences.
Gagging, coughing
up my thoughts
until I am a mess
of misspoken words
and unfiltered thoughts.
It is a sickness,
and the journey’s end
is a death sentence.
Jul 28, 2025
Jul 28, 2025 at 6:41 AM UTC
Maybe I'm nails on a chalkboard,
Interrupting peace with every screech.
Your two least favorite foods mixed together
A sight no one wants to see.
Maybe I’m polka dots paired with stripes,
Three clashing shades of pink.
A beat too fast, the words don’t match,
And you’ll never catch up to me.
I’m toast that's burnt, leaves left on the curb,
The promise of fun—but never the one.
And worst of all?
I’m the one who got me there.
Jun 11, 2025
Jun 11, 2025 at 7:23 PM UTC
A stranger who doesn’t fit anywhere on Earth
Something about her skin
Too dark to be white
Not dark enough to be her heritage.
A girl whose skin is too light
Her hair not black enough
A girl wearing American clothes
Living the American way.
Little mixed girl
Who doesn’t even speak the language
Of her grandfather
Fake little mixed girl
Who talks about being Indian
To actually feel connected
To her culture
Yet, she knows it’s a lie
She doesn’t celebrate Diwali.
She doesn’t know traditions
Little mixed girl
Who isn’t ethnic enough
To get offended over slurs
Fake little mixed girl
Who knows her ancestors
Look down upon her
Whitewashed self
And feel nothing but shame.
Fake little mixed girl
Pretending to be something she’s not.
Apr 23, 2025
Apr 23, 2025 at 3:17 PM UTC
i want to write
i want to fill this empty page with brilliant words
i want to blow people away with my witty metaphors and symbolism
but i cant seem to get it out
trust me I have so much to say
too many thoughts
too many unfinished poems
just sitting,
unpolished,
unperfect,
unacceptable,
it's either too wordy or not wordy enough,
too meticulous or not meticulous enough,
doesn't rhyme at all or doesn't rhyme the way i want it to
i want to be good like all the others i see on here
but i just cant seem to measure up
Dec 16, 2024
Dec 16, 2024 at 10:38 PM UTC
driven by a ghost
possessing my body
I lived with a mind
a stranger with no identity
a thatched soul, fake
- no authenticity
quivered in fear
of people in my vicinity
may they never discover
the imposter - my entity.
Dec 12, 2022
Dec 12, 2022 at 8:57 PM UTC
An infestation
Roaches defy purity
Yet it continues
Feb 16, 2022
Feb 16, 2022 at 2:08 PM UTC
A child shoved in an adults body
Craftsmanship pretty shoddy
Spirals plus games I cannot play
Atonements I could never pay
Alone but not yet still afraid
Being told I should have stayed
A cascade of regret and yet
I'm the threat
Jan 28, 2020
Jan 28, 2020 at 12:05 PM UTC
said the Thing alone in his head
“how many steps must i stay ahead
of fear and self-doubt
lest they figure me out
and peel the skin I’ve twice shed?”
Sep 18, 2019
Sep 18, 2019 at 2:18 PM UTC
I am disconnected
from my entire self
like these fingerprints
I’ve known my whole life
somehow aren’t mine.
Out of body experiences
and feeling like
I’m on the outside looking in
has become the norm.
I’ve wiggled my way
into these stories
this background
but I don’t belong here.
Someone is going to notice
call me out
for being an imposter
in my own life.
I’ve existed for decades
feeling like I’m living
in someone else’s skin.
May 28, 2019
May 28, 2019 at 10:22 PM UTC
There was a man masquerading as me,
But I caught him by the collar
And wrenched him out!
Apr 8, 2019
Apr 8, 2019 at 11:53 AM UTC