I'm drowning.
The crumpled wads of paper have finally closed over my head
Stained ink words clogging in my throat
Not permitting me to utter anything new.
My arm lashes out
Reaching desperately to break through the surface
pen gripped tightly between my fingers
Closed in a fist
Fighting to find my escape.
Names slide down my skin
Tracing paths over my body like droplets of water
My own alias somehow among them
Undeserving
Slow and small.
Jagged chunks of verses and stanzas flow around me
Pushing at me from every side
Every angle
The pressure so great that I open my mouth wide to breathe
Letting them all come tumbling in.
Choking
I gag and heave
Trying to force out words that compare even in the slightest to the foreign ones that entered.
Broken by success
Words that came so naturally before now struggle to fit through my lips.
Will I ever be good enough again?
Worse yet
Was I ever really good enough?