Admission

I struggle with confidence about writing.

This is not a bit.

The act of writing itself is fine. Confidence isn’t really on my mind then. It’s only when I’m on the verge of finishing things that it begins to show up.

I wrote a poem about it: “Parhelion”.

Over the past year, I’ve dumped hundreds of dollars into the Submittable ecosystem. I’ll submit the book, let it sit for a month, and then withdraw it.

This is not exactly a fear of rejection. It’s the fear of having something out in the world that is a snapshot of my mind at a certain time, but I can’t access it to change it or hide it.

I don’t have anything to add here. No jokes. It just needed to be said.

Parhelion

I must have been around five.
One day I was stacking blocks,
the next, I understood
time only goes one way
and nothing waited
for me to understand.

They said
I stared at my hands.
I asked what came before.

The drawings
could not be finished.
Finished
meant ended.

They made soft places
where I could lie down
when I could not
stay upright.

They painted skies
on the ceiling
that never ended.

They gave me seeds,
a book about beetles,
and crayons.

What keeps coming back
is the teacher kneeling,
drawing
one small sun
in the corner
where I had left the page
white.