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Am I good enough? Am I strong enough? Do I carry the people I care about?

These questions linger in the blunt back spaces of my mind where all fears and worries reside.

Will I succeed? Will the world see me as I want to be perceived?

Will my hopes and my dreams coincide? Will I be the best person that I can be before I die?

There seems to be a plateau above my head, I reach and grab and touch at the edges of my perception and I falter. 

There is a worry hanging over me. It covers my heart like a blanket; it is the fear of reprisal, the fear of failure the idea that I will not live up to who they want me to be.

 It is my father’s face, my mother’s voice, my brother’s laughter and my lovers embrace.

 It is the responsibility of them that holds me in place.

Their hands that make up the foundation of all my space.

I am myself through them but I am held back by them.

I am held back by my fears and my troubles, worries and questions. 

The tension between the two is the happy place that I rest in.

It is the contention, the banality, the reality to which I subscribe or rather to which I have been subjected to.

It is the peace and the strength of their love.

 It is love.

It is not a fairytale or a lost far off place, I may with patience find.

It is the here and now, the coming and going, to and fro.

The equilibrium that keeps your mind and heart and health together, that is love; their love.

When I ask myself that all too easy question, why?

Why give in to the responsibility and diminished creativity of life in these terms.

I immediately hear the answer deep in the pit of my soul.

Because of them.

Because of my father’s face smiling, my mother’s voice singing, my brother’s laughter pealing and my lover’s tight embrace.