Used to knock out
      a thousand words a day
            no matter what was going on.

Now my insides
      twist and shrivel up
            when asked about my progress.

Touching notebooks today
      is like an unavoidable shock
            of failure, helplessness, inadequacy.

Even a simple poem
      becomes a mountainous hurdle
            I’m steadily losing faith that I can leap.

It’s dangerous, a friend tells me,
      when things that are your passion
            start to feel more like hard work, labor.

For any writing to be this hard
      something fundamental inside me
            must be shifted, my balance completely awry.

I’ve never been strong, just resilient
      but resiliency eventually starts running dry.
            The bigger man collapses; the high road bridge is out.

Risks are not worth taking,
      effort is not worth expending;
             the deception of not trying for my own safety.

Too many negative experiences,
      too many moments of powerlessness.
            Nothing is there to feed back into spirit

and that’s why, at day’s end
      no coping mechanism can fully replace
            the immeasurable value of a solid human connection.

We become our own implosions,
      not because we choose to but because
            it’s the logical end to too much self-reliance.

I need to dig deep to find this flaw
      but I must also remain conscious of answers
            that lay somewhere just outside myself and my world.

To unlearn failure.
      To unlearn giving up.
            To unlearn meaninglessness.