The Pressure

Joy is quickly stolen from my presence when I circle down

this old train of thought, “why didn’t I do things this way before it ran out?”

“Why couldn’t I do things right in the first place when I had the chance?”

“Why can’t I just muster up the discipline to do the right thing?”

Questions of that nature repeatedly filling my mind

first thing in the morning

Most mornings are circling around those questions endlessly

But I try my best to break out of it somehow,

to try to move forward no matter what challenges are present,

I know exactly what’s going to happen if I don’t.

If the steam runs out to keep chugging along.

Never ending pressure that’s coming from nowhere else but within,

sounding the alarm to get myself together.

Beating myself up over the many missteps, thinking about how if they were

converted into monetary funds, I’d probably be close to a millionaire than being broke again

and it’s the daily affirmation of clinging onto hope trusting

change can take place at any second even without a sign

that keeps me going because I have to keep going,

my best days aren’t behind me.

What if the highlights of my last chapters are foreshadowing a brighter

future and if there is a brighter future, there has to be a positive change taking me out of the seemingly bottomless rut that I’m in,

transporting me to a dreamscape that had only been seen when I close my eyes and inhaled a deep breath of calming stillness

I can at least be grateful that if there exists a possibility where I’ve taken so many missteps, then there’s the reality of playing my cards

right as it should

I should cut myself a break for today.

Tomorrow could be a renewed “day one.”

It might feel like I’m at a tight, darkened dead end but tomorrow will bring joy in the morning

and I shall move forward from the shackles of today

I’m not a lost cause just because I took a few wrong turns and got lost

I’m not a bad person for making those mistakes in the first place

and I’m not guilty of anything other than being human.

I can’t keep comparing my “chapter seven”

to someone else’s “chapter twenty”

That’s the main thief of one’s own joy, comparing and taking notes of where one should’ve been

if it weren’t for the constant hand braking

The past is in the rearview mirror and I can’t drive forward if I keep looking at it, gone and immortalized as a memory

Until I stop feeding those fragments attention

I’m hoping for the best for the days ahead and perhaps the summer storm

sweeping the inch of sunlight joy I have will wither into nothing

when the sun rises again by the morning.