Invisible Audience

The imaginary deadline of success stares me down and sizes me up

I do my best to appear confident and hope that when I get there, that my best will be enough

Maybe my bravado will fool that invisible audience that I keep trying to please

Make it appear like everything I do is apart of a plan, and that I execute the plan with ease

If that illusory plan goes off without a hitch though, will the invisible spectators applaud?

Buy myself a few more years to get my life together with time that I feel I can not afford

I’m not an imposter though I say, trying to convince the man in the mirror who is not impressed

For he is the only one to whom I can not lie, and who knows all of my fears that remain repressed

Fears such as failing at the hunt for what I yearn for, yet I think I am beyond that, for I have failed enough now to know that failure of the hunt is not the enemy

See fear of failing is not the same as having a fear of not succeeding

Failing feels like a comfort now, where as not getting anywhere feels like I am receding

But still I am afraid that a carnage of failures with no elevation of success, will become my legacy.

Doomed to live a life of feeling not good enough mixed with creative complacency

The invisible audience tells me to give up, and I think I am tempted to follow the fold, I want to, but I say no, as I remember what I am fighting for, what this dream means to me. I can not let it go. For then what will be the point of this life that I lead?

After all, if you never hunt for what you want, then you will never get the chance to feed

So I get up and fail again, which feels like meeting an old friend

And after a while I grow thankful, as I start to notice a trend

That failures always lead me towards somewhere better, and not one perceived failure has ever lead me to a dead end

Getting to fail means that I got to do what I love in the first place because here’s the thing

The reward lies not in the audience but in every fight you face in the ring

The ironic truth is that the invisible audience is just that, made up, they don’t actually exist

So I leave them behind, learn to enjoy the process and I go on free to follow my creative bliss