There is a dull distaste for the world
that begins with myself. The anger with inefficiency
begins with my own lack of discipline.

How sorely I tread through the day ahead,
wounded and ready to attack. Behind all the sharp words
I save in my head, beneath the images of faces
I want to shout down, there is a disappointment with who I am,
with my inability to meet the expectations
I set for myself, that I expect of others.

An underlying fear of living a poor life.
Not experiencing the levels I want to reach,
to not be authentically myself,
when it’s the idea of myself that makes me its prisoner.

All my efforts, that I so desperately worry are in vain,
are, in fact, vainly attested to the narrative that upholds my self-importance.
Whose approval do I seek more than my own?
Yet the standards for that approval are conditioned by comparisons to others.

How do I surrender the idea of myself,
to the freedom to be whatever I already am in each moment?
To arrive as is, open to the experience, not resistant,
without preconceived desires working towards an ideal outcome,
just okay to discover the process as it comes,
to self-discover, as if stepping into a river,
when base instinct screams not to drown,
and intentions long to swim for the far shore.

Somewhere between instinct and intention is the river,
is the world, and amongst its folding waters is myself
holding onto the idea of myself that keeps me afloat, or so I think.
To let go, to let drown, to choose to ride the current,
and trust that authenticity will arise as the body learns to swim inside the moment.

No matter how great the swell may pull,
the gravity that anchors all to the lowest recesses,
the plum will drop, the center will hold
as the entire planet shifts.
I too am an anchor of myself, unmoved in the wake,
so still I almost forgot it was there.