It's hanging over your head like a dark cloud, but when you look up all you see is clear blue skies.
It's like hearing a rustle in the leaves, but when you turn around all that is in sight is an empty road.
It's when you are so close to the finish, but at the last second something grabs you by the feet and pulls you back,
And no matter how hard you kick, you can only watch hopelessly as everything you have worked for slips away in an instant.
It's that knot in your stomach that forms when you are about to present your poem to the class, even though you have rewritten it four times already.
It's that weight sitting in the back of your mind that you just can't seem to lift.
And it keeps weighing you further and further down, until you slowly sink away into the ground.
It's that fear of the unknown, of all of the "what if's".
It's the fear of failing, of being judged; the fear of being different.
you can't make it, that you aren't strong enough, you aren't cut out for the work.
that people won't approve of your choices.
It is your own thoughts, swirling in your brain like a tornado, bouncing back and forth until you start to believe everything that you wish wouldn’t be true.
A constant ringing in your ears that seems to never stop.
All of your most brilliant ideas suddenly become crumpled up in a ball in the trash, like a picture that you stared at for too long then questioned whether you ever even liked it in the first place.
Every time you come close to beating this force field, it grabs you by the throat and pins you down, even tighter than the time before.
You have reached a dead end in this long and confusing maze
That dark cloud will always be floating around over your head no matter how hard you try to shake it away,
And that weight will always be just slightly too heavy for you to lift.
No matter how many times you practice your poem, that knot in your stomach won't go away.
That finish line that you are so close to reaching torments you as you continue to be dragged further and further back
And that tornado of thoughts swirling in your head gets the best of you each time you start to think.
It feels like you can never win, and that you will never be able to break through this brick wall.