Self- Erected Barriers

There is this rather silly propensity we have,

a leaning towards doubting our own capabilities,

fearing—quite absurdly—that perhaps we are unlovable,

or worse, incompetent at even the simplest tasks.

 

We look, oh how we peer—not into mirrors,

but into the familiar faces of friends, and dear lovers,

scouring desperately for a smidgen of affirmation or care,

as if searching for a lost contact lens on a patterned carpet.

 

This estrangement we feel, this odd sense of being outsiders—

from ourselves, from the heartbeat of chums,

from that indefinable Whisper that breezes through everything—

it isn't just a mere restlessness; it is the restlessness.

 

Yet when the spark does jump, when one soul skims the surface

of another, there's this blooming, a kind of flowering love—

for ourselves, mind you, and for that other soul across the way.

Solitude’s dance card only fills when we ourselves pencil in the waltz.

 

These walls, these self-erected barriers, well, they're our own doing,

separating us from kin, from the neighbor who always waves,

from the very ones we've broken bread with or shared a whispered dream.

It’s on us to extend a hand, to reach—with love being the thing extended.

 

They tell us recovery brings with it a gleaming toolbox

that can fix these barricades we've so meticulously built.

But here’s the clincher: we must be brave enough to wield the hammer.

For it all begins with the ancient art of listening,

and then the spilling of our own patchwork selves onto the table.

 

Consider the gamble of giving love without a guaranteed return:

not a bad roll of the dice, I would wager,

for it may just unlatch us from that relentless scavenger hunt

for affection in the guise of others' glances and nods.

 

See, risking to love first—heaven forbid we make the initial overture—

might just uncuff us from the expectations scribbled on the faces

crowded around us—the very same that often look, bewildered, back at us,

wondering why we're staring them down like a cat at a fishbowl. ("Self- Erected Barriers") by Courtney Weaver Jr.