I stand before you today

With a confession

Oh, but I don't know what I want to say

I could leave you with the wrong impression

 

There's my problem

Nineteen years of my life were spent up. Pent up.

Tentative.

 

Tentative to speak

Tentative to act

 

No penny could pay for my thoughts 

I didn't want them to be bought

Cause I'd lement on what my own two cents meant

 

Tentative to fall 

Tentative to fail

 

Would I sink, or would I sail?

I hold in me nearly two decades of thoughts unvoiced

Songs unsung

I held my tongue

Savagely sealed my lips in a vice grip

 

Tentative to slip

Tentative to embarass myself

 

Because its better to be silent than to be stupid

To be complacent than to incite violence

I stifled myself

Suppressed how I really feel

Snuffed out my zest and my zeal

To put on a front that was so far from real

 

Tentative to risk it

Tentative to seal

 

My fate, and be forced to reparate

Or negate myself in my own debate

What if they hate me?

I was scared of that subjective status

"Stupid"

 

But I had a sneaking suspicion that my stanzas were sound

My sentences sucinct 

I yearn to influence others to think

But I value my own thoughts and opinions so much

I shelter them, swallow hard, and suppress them with a blink

 

Tentative to stand

Tentative to fight

 

I'm Gatsby. Arms outstretched towards my green light

The lime-light

Beckoning bright

I craved the feedback 

Be it disaster or delight 

But how do you break a habit

Of hiding your heart

Where does one start?

 

Perhaps like a dart?

Throw my words at a board and see where they land?

Or a time capsule?

Left to be dug out from the sand?

 

Tentative to plan

Tentative to improve

 

I have to force my lips to move

Delve into the dark despite disdain

Ignore my instincts to refrain

 

Shrug off the laughter

If it happens

After all,

Its not discouragement

Its room to grow

 

There's nowhere else that I can go

But up

And if I learn to take flight

If I start to soar

 

Then maybe I'll learn to be

Tentative no more