Last night
you didn’t come as your youthful self,
my fun, faithful friend.
Instead, bald, broad, and bellied you asked,
your hard question against my thigh:
Why not?
Respect, I said,
Squeamish at your leer.
You lowered your voice to that super serious tone
I remember so well.
Really?
So much doubt.
Yes.
Really.
Even in my dreams I’m over this.
Your words cannot offend.
I don’t depend on faulty interdiction.
Sometimes encouragement sounds like doubt.
Mona Lisa smile betrays my conviction:
Sure knowing I will transcend.
Anticipation building.
Preparations made.
At the back of the mind
Really?
Surely there will come disappointment
instead of you?
The mark was missed
the complications overwhelmed the need
for simplicity
and now the resulting confusion
obliterates the good intentions and the message
that she thought was being conveyed.
The arrow did not hit the target;
it is quivering in a tree several feet away,
but at least it’s not in anyone’s
back.
Kill the critic:
let him drown in the
flow of your words.
Kill the critic:
let him sear in the
molten eruption
from the core of you.
Kill the critic:
let him smother
gasping against the tide
of your creativity,
.grasping at the emptiness
that was your insecurities.
Kill the critic:
be free.
.
.
NB: I do not advocate murder of anything but the inner voice that tells you that you’re inadequate. Your inner critic has no business in your writing head-space. You can’t edit a blank page.
Shawn L. Bird 