A Therapist’s Fears

There’s a passion burning in my soul

I see the kids at the grocery store

Throwing fits and avoiding hits

Cardboard signs held up by tired hands

Collapsed veins and bottle caps spilled across the table

I want to help

To take my passion and turn it into a change

Something I can see and feel

What will it take

To make me put both feet into the water

I have tip toed in

Silently and cautiously I wade

As the water reaches my ankles I jump back

Thoughts of burn out

Their eyes haunt my dreams

What if I fail

“But honey what if you succeed?”

What if I can’t help

I am left driving home to the same cardboard sign

My eyes lowered and stomach in knots

Rose tinted glasses smashed to the ground

Shards sticking out of my shins

All I wanted to do was be a movement

One wave in a sea of them

So I run back

Throwing my hat into the ring means there is no returning the hat

Commitment has never been my problem

Yet standing in the doorway it is my greatest fear

The possibility of failure has me sinking faster than quicksand

The thought of success makes me knees weak

Between the two I fall against the cold concrete

Praying to the Lord this is my destiny

That I am enough to do what I was put here to do

Through the blood, tears, and abuse that ring in my ears

I cannot erase their past

A new future is all I have to offer

My life raft is reframing and talk therapy

I throw it out

Hoping they catch it and float

Until they can swim

My own air starts to deflate as they sink

“Remember who you are”

So I puff up my chest and blow

Pain spreads through my body

An epidemic I have no control over

My tube has been filled

They have floated away from my grasp

Yet here comes six more that I blew up months ago

Light shines down on me with the reminder

I was born for this