Doubt is like a violin, always at my neck and pulling at my strings. The sharp notes always leave its markings around my neck when it tries to lynch me.
It’s also similar to a rain cloud, just following me wherever I go.
My heart gets soaked and sinks like an anchor, or how former NBA player Jerry Stackhouse used to get low at the free-throw line. Every time I want to grasp the sun’s rays, I’m just stuck in the moon’s shade. Then when I think I’m going to shine, doubt just hides in its pitch-black alleyway waiting to jump me with sadder Blue Devils than Duke University. It seems they just rob me of my pocketful of stars and replaces them with stones to throw.
Sometimes, I feel like there’s got to be more for me, like an ending that doesn’t explain everything for the audience. Other times, it just feels like my six years in the university don’t mean much. I studied for two degrees, yet I don’t associate myself as a bachelor, and I feel appalled when I’m told that I should slave for a master’s. The reason is because I don’t know if I can do it. That’s probably why I abbreviate my name, to show everyone my shortcomings.
I wish my pride was on the level of Floyd Mayweather’s, but if I was anything similar to him–I wouldn’t be able to read between the lines.
Maybe I’m selling myself short like a pawn shop. Or perhaps, I’m just that coin that was tossed in a well and left to drown.
I’m tired of empty wishing, though.
Even though there wasn’t a king in the home, I still became a prince, but regardless, I still envy those who have one. No father figure, but I still raised these words off the floor like a newborn. I owe everything to my mother. We grew up broke as a shattered vase, but the love was richer than a Rothschild.
I think we are all royalty. We just need people to remind us of that. Old friends of mine seemed to leave when I began to struggle. So, it’s no joke when I say I know folk who have gone missing on me like Roanoke.
It took a lot of new faces to remind me why I even started writing as my craft in the first place. Every day I have the world on my back like I’m Atlas, but the pride they give me helps ease the load off.
It’s a never-ending struggle. Sometimes, I just want to don the villain’s mask and other times, I feel I need to wear the hero’s crown. It’s as if everyone wants to see me shine in the shadow of a doubt.
Maybe they’re onto something.
I think that’s what you call love. Something that people spend their entire lives searching for and can never decipher it like an unfinished thesis.
The other week I wrote about how Hoodie Melo rocks his hoodie to protect himself from the raining doubt that’s over him.
I should do the same.
Yesterday, I was drowning.
Today, I’m blossoming like the flower you give to your crush and over everyone’s head like a cracked crown.
But you knew that already.
Right?
