March 30. 2021

burying the critic

I mean the one at your shoulder, wagging impending failures in front of your eyes,
hanging a clothesline of old narratives as if making a case against any possible revision,
the one who keeps caging your wild and beautifully forgetful optimism and clips 
each new desire surging from the soil. You must first interrupt your deference, 
shake the politeness out of your face. You must acknowledge the rage living 
in your stomach and all the ways you’ve swatted this pain from your attention. 
You must place your hands against your own throat, feel the tautness of your skin, 
what you have held back in the name of safety, of keeping the peace. You must tear 
the loyalty from your long-held silence, reach behind your back toward this beast 
feasting on your remainders. You must say, Enough. You must say, I don’t need you anymore.