I Fear I Have Failed

When nothing seemed to go as planned,

When I was ripped at the seams of my organized mind,

Time dragged on longer than it spanned.

I searched without knowing what I wanted to find.

When I flew, I crashed.

When I lit up the room, I burned.

But before my eyes it flashed,

The fear of losing what I thought I had earned.

When I laughed, I cried.

When everything fell apart, I pretended it didn’t.

Because I knew the strength I had when I tried,

But I didn’t realize the strength it took to come home was hidden.

When coming home felt like my greatest fear,

When admitting it felt like the end of the world,

I didn’t know something not working out would bring so many tears

Or that facing my fear of failure would take me out of the box in which I stood.

When people tell you how brave you are for taking risks,

When I believed that a display of pride was greater than a peace of mind,

I learned that distraught is not something pride can fix,

And unfulfillment is not something I can hide.

When I faced the fact that I cannot hide behind a perfect facade,

When I accepted that this time I got it wrong,

I could finally take off the mask and being bare felt so odd,

But suddenly my heart skipped to the beat of a different song.

Because I never quite knew the strength it took,

Or how free I’d feel after the first step out of shell I called home,

To embrace the plans that fell apart as they shook.

When I embraced my failure, I gained a sense of hope and felt a little less alone.